NED has 88 more seats and 2 new postgraduate courses

KARACHI:

This year, NED University of Engineering and Technology will not only be offering 88 more candidates the opportunity to become engineers, but it has also managed to increase its budget by 14 per cent to around Rs1.74 billion, despite a financial crunch.

The university also plans to offer new postgraduate programmes, including mechatronics and earthquake engineering.

This was decided and approved at the university’s 20th senate meeting held at Senate Hall on Wednesday. The faculty and administration members who formed the statutory body sat wearing green robes as they waited for the governor of Sindh and university’s chancellor, Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan to make an entrance. But as he failed to do so, the meeting was led by NED’s vice chancellor and a stickler for time and discipline, Abul Kalam.

The session kicked off as scheduled at 10:30 am, with a few senate members raising issues relating to the meeting’s agenda. Kalam, who sensed that not everyone was participating in the session, said that he would like to hear what everyone had to say.

While presenting the university’s annual report, the vice chancellor claimed that they had decided to increase the enrolment quota to 1,952 undergraduates, 708 postgraduates and 17 PhD students.

NED’s admissions director Prof. Dr Muhammad Tufail told The Express Tribune that last year they had 1,926 undergraduates, 648 postgraduate and 15 PhD students.

According to Kalam, the university’s was not only focused at providing quality education, but also wanted to improve the faculty’s competency levels. In 2009, only 51 faculty members had a PhD, but now around 93 of them have one.

Money matters

With reference to the university’s approved budget for this year, NED had asked the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for an annual grant of Rs1.01billion and had expected to generate the remaining amount themselves. So far the HEC has not committed to anything.

“The HEC has not said or hinted that they are going to give us the grant,” said the university’s finance director Muhammad Sajeeruddin. “The commission is handicapped due to the noncooperation of the federal finance ministry and cannot be blamed. The public sector universities would be able to sort their affair properly if they received the budget and money on the scheduled dates.” He added that they still had not received the amount due for the last quarter of 2011. The cheque they received on June 28 bounced and the HEC had to send another one on July 16.

Last year, the university demanded for an annual HEC grant of Rs978 million while the commission committed to give only Rs700 million. As for last year’s development budget, the commission has yet to provide Rs100 million of the total committed amount of Rs275 million.

For its diverse programmes, the university requires more funds. “At least 1,181 students received Rs13.5 million worth scholarships this year,” said finance director.

NED is also the only institution in the country which provides opportunities to the B-Tech degree holders to do degree conversion programmes after which they receive engineering degrees.

In the middle of budget talks and new programmes, the senate also managed to propose and approve two amendments. The university’s academic council will now have the right to appoint senior faculty members of various departments as members to a specific department’s board of studies. “The purpose of the board of studies is to supervise the core curriculum of a department and senior faculty members at inter-related engineering disciplines would be able to provide a good insight,” said the university’s registrar Javed Aziz Khan. The second amendment was made to the semester system. The university will now have two semesters instead of four in an academic year.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 19^th, 2012.