With flying colours: 3,066 graduates bid farewell to NED

Varsity awards degrees to successful engineering students at 25th convocation

KARACHI: Around 3,066 successful graduates donning black gowns and colourful scarves were awarded degrees at the 25^th convocation of NED University of Engineering and Technology on Tuesday.

A total of 2,352 candidates received their Bachelor's degrees in 21 disciplines, 712 students were awarded Master's degrees in 23 disciplines and two were awarded PhD degrees. The university offers 29 undergraduate and 50 Master's and doctoral programmes.

A total of 2,352 candidates received their Bachelor's degrees, 712 students were awarded Master's degrees and two were awarded PhD degrees. PHOTO: ATHAR KHAN/EXPRESS

Around 1,479 students of the total graduates received their degrees at the convocation while 873 graduated in absentia.

Addressing the parents, teachers, educationists and students at the graduation ceremony, the varsity's vice-chancellor, Prof Dr Muhammad Afzal Haque, said that NED will serve as a national centre of excellence with the establishment of the Technology Park, which will be a landmark in Karachi.



During his speech, Haque claimed that the technology park, which has been built under public-private partnership, will be conceptualising as a practical means to cross-fertilise business needs and technological development in Karachi. The foremost aim of the park will be to facilitate the production and commercialisation of state-of-the-art technologies from various engineering disciplines and facilitating research and development activities, he said.

Haque added that they are trying to make the varsity an entrepreneurially inspired university. "We have [put] all our energies into the establishment of entrepreneurial ecosystem to fully permeate the campuses," he said.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, a position holder in the automotive engineering department, Mustufa Shabbir Zariwala, said automotive was never his first choice and initially he wanted to study mechanical engineering. "I am happy that I got into automotive because I always wanted to do [something] in automobiles," he said, adding that he wanted to complete his Master's and try bringing the automobile industry back in Pakistan.

Another first position holder from urban engineering, Hamna Hasan, was excited to score top marks among the class of more than 50. "It was my first choice in the field of engineering and despite having an option to change my discipline when I scored high marks, I never switched," she said.

Sindh Governor Muhammad Zubair, who is the university's chancellor, did not attend the convocation. This is the fifth consecutive convocation of the university in which the chancellor was not present. Education Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar also failed to make it to the convocation.