S the times are changing and new culture and mindsets emerging to meet the modern world requirements, the universities are no exception as they are now expected to generate their own resources than depend on the government.

With the beginning of the new millennium, the Higher Education Commission had started massively funding the universities that changed their whole profile. The universities` departments were able to get new equipment and consumables, while the faculty members received funding for doing PhDs and conducting research.

However, during the past half decade the HEC funding started to reduce and touched minimum levels that forced respective varsities` administrations to look for generating their own resources.

The HEC also asked respective varsities to stop looking towards it and generate their own resources.

As the varsities` administrations started thinking of generating resources, two types of views surfaced to exploit physical resources and earn money torun university affairs, and to use university`s professional and academic excellence to generate resources.

While, the Punjab University administration is struggling to give its 50-kanal land to a bus company on lease to generate funds, University of Agriculture Faisalabad Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan says the UAF has asked its faculty to hunt research projects and grants to further their research and ranking that would eventually help the university itself to grow in terms of scientific research and academic performance.

Prof Khan, who was in Lahore to participate in the two-day Dawn Sarsabz Agri Expo last week, admitted that the faculty members used to `blackmail` the vice-chancellors that they had attained knowledge but lack of facilities was hampering their performance in implementing their knowledge. During his tenure that began in 2008, when HEC funding had started reducing, Prof Khan said he began to introduce a culture and asked the faculty members to become relevant to the modern needs and utilise their expertise to offering consultation and researches to the industry and earn money.

The vice-chancellor said that hefaced resistance and learnt that to do great things was difficult but to command great things was even more difficult. He said he also made it clear that everybody should do his own work and stop exploiting their juniors. Referring to complaints, he admitted that faculty deans and chairmen used to ask their juniors to write research papers but put their names as principal authors.

Similarly, he said, the juniors were forced to take their seniors` classes, who eventually received perks and privileges. `In the past some teachers `earned` Best Teacher Awards, who had never been to their classes,` he observed.

Prof Khan said the younger faculty started to work more vigorously as they won many research projects and grants.

`Now, the university is not funding the faculty for research and academic purposes and still many have state-of-the-art equipment and allied infrastructure,` he joyously said.

Substantiating his claims, the UAF VC said the university faculty had 109 research projects and Rs401 million funds in hand in 2008, while at present the university faculty has 267 research projects in hand along with Rs2.039 billion funds. `These funds are morethan the university`s core budget,` he said.

He also said this activity led to increase varsity`s research publications from 305 in 2008 to over 1,200. In 2008, the UAF research papers` online citation was around 600 that had now increased to over 6,000 citations. `This whole exercise has overall enhanced the profile of the university and it earned the coveted slot of among top 100 universities in the world ranked by the National Taiwan University rankings,` he asserted.

UNJAB Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan has announced distribution of 150,000 laptops among male and female students getting more than 65pc marks in all universities in the province. Of these laptops, he says, 25,000 will be provided by the federal government.

The minister says Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on behalf of the Punjab government has also decided to give laptops as a gift to the position holders of all educational boards of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, AzadJammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

UNJAB Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar last week awarded Fatima Jinnah Award 2014 to 19 women in recognition of their meritorious services in the areas of education,literature,media, performing arts, entrepreneurship, health, agriculture and sports in an effort to reassure Quaid`s dream that `the nation of Pakistan will rise to its height of glory with our women alongside our men`.

The women who received their awards at the Governor House were: Dr Arfa Syeda Zehra, Prof Dr Najma Najam, Prof Salima Hashmi, Sister Andrew Sequeira, Perin Cooper Boga, Roshaneh Zafar, Prof Dr Kausar Jamal Cheema, Prof Dr Joveria Mannan, Prof Dr Khalida Usmani, Prof Dr Zahida Sarwar, Bano Qudsia, Madeeha Gauhar, Nahid Siddiqui, Navid Shahzad, Surraiya Multanikar, Nasreen Mehmud Kasuri, Sana Mir, Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani.

The governor said he felt proud in saying that future of Pakistan was now in the hands of women of Pakistan.

Punjab Women DevelopmentDepartment Minister Hamida Wahida-udDin said the revival of the Fatima Jinnah Award was a very important component of Punjab government`s women empowerment agenda. She said these awards were a homage to Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah as well as recognition of the hard work of the distinguished women, who received their awards.

Lahore College for Women University Vice-Chancellor Dr Sabiha Mansoor said the Fatima Jinnah Award was a tribute by the Punjab government as well as from the entire women of Punjab to these professionals. Though only 19 women had been honoured at the function, Dr Mansoor said there were millions of wonderful women, who were being recognised for the courage, commitment and empowerment through the Fatima Jinnah awardees. She said the 19 women, who received awards, were a role model for all.

The LCWU had recently been appointed convener of Fatima Jinnah Awards 2014 by the Punjab Women Development Department. The department had also constituted a `Fatima Jinnah Awards Steering Committee` led by LCWU VC Dr Sabiha Mansoor and a `Fatima Jinnah Award Selection Committee`.

mansoormalikl73@hotmail.com