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326 SZABIST students graduate
KARACHI, March 5(Daily Times): Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology
(SZABIST) conferred degrees on 326 of its students at its fifth convocation held
Saturday at a local hotel.
The institution, that has been named the best
business school in Asia for five consecutive years by Business Week and the best
MBA school for two years by Asia Week, has campuses in Karachi, Larkana and
Dubai and has been functioning for 11 years.
The institute conferred 25
BBA degrees, 24 BS and BCS degrees, 178 MBA degrees, 48 MCS degrees and 51 MS
degrees.
Dr Javaid Leghari, SZABIST vice president, introduced the
institution, which is the only Pakistani institution to be a member of
international organisations such as the Commonwealth Institutions Union and the
SAARC Educational Institutions Union, New Delhi. "Each year, our students
receive prestigious awards such as the Fullbright, Rhodes, Cambridge, Chevening
and the World Bank scholarships," he told the audience members, who included the
graduates and their parents as well as heads of corporate organisations that had
sponsored the event. Leghari also mentioned that the Higher Education Commission
of Pakistan (HEC) had ranked SZABIST in the top three business and information
technology schools in Pakistan. He said that the vision of SZABIST was to
prepare its students for the challenges that they could face as citizens of the
world. "You have been part of an elite institution," he said to the graduates,
"and we hope that you address the educational disparities that exist in this
country as where a large number of students are able to get world-class
education, there are many others who cannot even sign their names."
The
chief guest and keynote speaker of the occasion was Rt Sir Gerald Kaufman who
spoke on "The responsibility of being Pakistan". He said that he was delighted
to be part of the ceremony of the institute as he had admired Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto and his achievements and was appalled and horrified at his end. He said
that there were 800,000 Pakistani-origin people in Britain and Islam was among
the largest religions in the country, second only to Christianity. He said that
Pakistanis had made a significant contribution to the fields of medicine, law,
sports, law and order and the arts in the UK and were the best liked when it
came to food. "However, Pakistan has enormous problems of pollution and
poverty," he lamented, "and it is essential that they must solve these because
it might not be the richest Islamic nation but it is the most significant as it
has huge responsibilities." He said that Pakistan had taken up the mission to
prove that just because it was a Muslim country did not mean that it was not
liberal. After all, he said, Pakistan was the first Asian country to have a
woman prime minister. "The biggest responsibility that Pakistan has to shoulder
is that it has to prove that a developing country can counter poverty and
disease and can do much more industrially and commercially than a call centre."
He said that he hoped that President Musharraf would establish true democracy in
Pakistan, as democracy was a part of the country's constitution and, "a Pakistan
that is not democratic is not the Pakistan established by Mohammad Ali Jinnah."
He urged the students to stay back in Pakistan, as their country needed their
contribution to enlighten it and help it prosper and grow to its full potential.
SZABIST awarded gold medals to Munira Mansuri and Sanam Pathan of BBA,
Mehjabeen Sultan and Muhammad Tahauddin Ahmed of MCS and Muhammad Umair Naqvi of
MS for their outstanding performance. Five surprise gold medals were also
awarded by corporate organisations to Farah Ali Nawaz of MBA for brand
management, Jyoti Balani of MBA for treasury and funds management, Beenish Nida
Afaq of MBA for pharmaceutical management, and Zara Rehman and Muffadal of MBA
for sales management.
Gold medallist Sanam Pathan spoke on behalf of the
medallists and said that SZABIST was much more to her than just an institution
where she had achieved a degree. "SZABIST is an inspiration for everyone who
believes that the purpose of life is a life of purpose. It is a corridor of
opportunities and it has taught us to dream, dare and achieve." She thanked the
faculty for their support who, she said, always went an extra mile to help the
students. The institution also recongnised two of it's employees, Asif Qazi and
Natasha Lobo, for having successfully completed ten years with SZABIST.
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