On the 14th of August, 1947 Pakistan inherited one dilapidated university, one Textile Mill and one Jute factory. That was the infrastructure for the new government of Pakistan. The assets that were supposed to have been divided never arrived. Pakistan had no ariforce, nor army and no navy. She for all practical purposes had no capital.

The capital of the newly created Republic of India was already connected to the more than 560 states. Lahore, Quetta, Rawalpindi, Hydrabad were not connected to the Pakistani capital…they were still connected to Delhi. When that link was severed, Pakistanis scrambled to connect the Pakistani cities to Karachi the new capital.

In the past 6 decades, Pakistan now has several hundred universities and several thousand factories.

Now the struggle is to create world class universities and to produce Phd students who can usher in research and development in history, geography and of course in science and technology.

This new endeavor has already created many new world class universities with major countries of the world which are:

1) France (already functional in Marine Academy campus in Mauripur Karachi)

2) Korea

3) Japan 

4) Sweden

5) Germany

6) China (already functional in Islamabad in temp campus)

Some of these are already functioning and others being constructed. This will go a long way in creating the renaissance that we are all part of.

HEC delegation visits China to set up university in Islamabad

* PCU being established in collaboration with leading engineering universities of China

ISLAMABAD: A two-member HEC delegation recently visited China on the invitation of the Chinese Consortium of Universities collaborating with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for the establishment of the Pakistan-China University (PCU) in Islamabad.

Sources said the PCU is being established in partnership with leading engineering universities of China. They said the university would have a student body of 5,600 and would annually produce 200 PhDs, 700 masters and 900 graduates. They said to give the university a jumpstart, a two-year MSc programme in selected disciplines would begin in fall 2008 at a temporary campus located in Sector H-8/1, Islamabad.

Sources said the HEC delegation had fruitful discussions with representatives of the Chinese Education Ministry. Discussions revolved around the details of two important government level agreements namely the Inter-Governmental and the Bilateral agreement.

They said these would be finalised by the end of February and later formally signed in Beijing. The delegation also held discussions with high-level officials of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and the North China University of Electric Power. They said the PCU Beijing office was also formally launched during the delegation’s visit.

Sources said the two sides finalised the list of universities in the consortium, the masters’ programmes for 2008, the admissions criteria, the curriculum details and textbooks. They said the arrangements for the selection of faculty and their transfer to Pakistan were also agreed upon. They said the founding rector and director of programmes of PCU were also identified, adding that these names would be formalised in February.

They said representatives of the Chinese Consortium Universities would also visit Pakistan in March. online