Moalims

islamabad - Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad has spent Rs 95.64 million in the year 2014-15 on awarding scholarships to its students and is hiring best teachers to further improve its standard of teaching, said Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Javaid Ashraf yesterday.
“We are trying to hire the best faculty from all over the country to further boost the quality of education and compete the top-ranked universities of the world,” he told APP in an interview at the sprawling campus of the university nestling in the green hills in the outskirts of the federal capital.
The university is spending much of its funds on giving scholarships to its best students. During the financial year 2014-15, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) has awarded 3556 scholarships of Rs 95.64 million among its students in 28 different categories to study at QAU, he said. These scholarships were purely given on merit and need-based which are offered to those students who are unable to pay their fees. However, the university was in dire need of infrastructure development, academic building, hostel accommodation, academic department and auditorium and efforts were underway to do the job, said Prof Javaid Ashraf.
Dr Ashraf said that “we have planned to send our non-PhD faculty members abroad to earn PhD degrees, so that the level of our faculty could further be improved.” Emphasizing on the research work at the university, he said that some of its research is practically applicable in the field but some does not due to specific nature. There are a lot of research work which is not related to the fields but on the other hand results of many scholarly pursuits are being used by the policy makers in various fields of life, he added.
He said “We are hopeful about the steps being taken for an improvement of research work at QAU, which will prove beneficial to the country.”
The QAU research papers were being published in the outstanding magazines and papers at national and international level which have earned it top ranking in the country, he said. Replying to a question he said the subjects which were being taught at the QAU University had a market value and helped its students get jobs in private sector as well as in public sector nationally and internationally.
Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal had held an important meeting recently with Vice Chancellors of the different universities and suggested them to further enhance the standards of education in their institutions, he said.

Although the university is ranked first in the country by Higher Education Commission (HEC) and some reports published by United States papers have declared the QAU among top 500 universities of the world, yet the VC was not satisfied over its current ranking and was determined to further raise its rankings in the seats of learning in the world.
He said approximately 9000 students were currently studying in the university and their number was increasing every year. The quality of education has attracted a large number of students to the QAU as in pharmacy 3000 application were received for only 15 seats and 2500 applications were received for only 50 seats in the business administration, he said. There were many students who want to be student of the QAU, he said.
To a question he said that QAU was the only university in Pakistan which had been strictly following provincial quota for admission of the students hailing from across the country. “We take students from FATA, GB, Waziristan, adding QAU is the mini-Pakistan hiring the students from all over the country on merit basis.”


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