Imparting Skills, Values, and Attitude in students equally important as Education says Chairman Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC), Prof. Dr. Fazal Ahmad Khalid while addressing the inaugural session of the five-days Leadership and Management Training program for the Vice-Chancellors of public and private universities in Punjab organized by Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC). He further said, alongside imparting education, universities must equally focus on enhancing the employable skills of the students, cultivating their values, and trimming their attitudes to maximize their employability chances in the market. To this end, universities need a competent team and an inspiring leader. Through inspirational leadership, and effective management, universities can cope with the emerging challenges in higher education and achieve good governance at their campuses.
The inaugural ceremony was graced by Prof. Dr. Amjad Saqib, Executive Director Akhuwat Foundation, Secretary Higher Education Department, Govt. of Punjab, Syed Javed Iqbal Bukhari, Commission members of the PHEC, and Vice-Chancellors of public and private sector universities in Punjab.
The chairman maintained that the program would provide an opportunity to vice-chancellors to strengthen their networking and to enable them in transforming the higher education institutions in order to improve academic excellence and international ranking. Prof. Dr. Fazal Ahmad expressed his resolve saying, the initiative would enhance vice chancellors’ commitment to ensuring sustainable education, quality, standards at their institutions while contributing towards the socio-economic development of the country.
Addressing this occasion, the chairman PHEC Prof. Dr. Fazal Ahmad said that industry 4.0 had revolutionized the world and proven disruptive to the traditional mode of governance and leadership, the vice-chancellors, to effectively run the campus affairs efficiently had to re-align themselves as per the imperatives of this changing environment. He said that PHEC had trained vice-chancellors from public sector universities in the first phase last year. “The program was appreciated by the participants and there were calls for another program for the freshly appointed vice-chancellors. The current batch of the training program has included vice-chancellors/rectors from private sector universities as well” he added.
Secretary Higher Education Department, Govt. of the Punjab Syed Javed Iqbal Bokhari, also addressed the participants. He said that the performance of universities was linked with the individual performance of the vice-chancellors and stressed making universities centers of excellence in education, research, and public service. He added that the role of vice-chancellor was crucial in this regard and they needed to work hard to improve the standards of universities at par with international parameters and to compete with global higher education institutions. The secretary maintained that the higher education department with the collaboration of the Punjab Higher Education Commission has developed the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the vice-chancellors. He added that the best-performing vice-chancellors against these indicators would be awarded recognition.
Syed Javed Iqbal Bokhari further said that the government under its reformative agenda in the higher education sector had also prepared the universities model act to systemize and harmonize the operations of universities in the province. He lauded the efforts of the Punjab Higher Education Commission for organizing the second batch of the Vice-Chancellors leadership and management program saying that the universities were facing tremendous challenges regarding academics and administration, the program would help vice-chancellors to develop new insight for better intuitional planning and growth through sharing of experiences and best practices implemented by the eminent higher education institutions.
Earlier addressing participants, the Executive Director of Akhuwat Foundation, Dr. Amjid Saqib emphasized value-based education and character building of the students, saying that the life of Prophet Mohammad (SAW) offered a guide for all of us to model such traits. He appreciated PHEC on the organization of such a needed program and lauded the leadership of Prof. Dr. Fazal Ahmad Khalid. The five-day program will address a wide range of topics on leadership and management including developing teaching excellence, roles of students and faculty, quality enhancement mechanisms, financial management in Universities, leveraging Information Technology, and Institutional, Transformation. The program will conclude on September 17th, 2021.