PESHAWAR (Staff Report): An official Afghan delegation headed by Dr. Nazar Muhammad Irfan, Director of Foreign Affairs and Scholarships, Ministry of Higher Education, Afghanistan including Afghan officials from the Afghan International Islamic University (AIIU) accompanied by Mr. Jehanzeb, Project Director HEC and Mr. Mujahid Aziz, Project Manager, HEC visited UET Peshawar here today.
The purpose of the visit was to see opportunity for initiating the joint faculty exchange program with the Afghan International Islamic University.
Dr. Rafiullah Atta, Chancellor of AIIU said, the visit is aimed to build institutional linkages with the leading Pakistani universities particularly in engineering and technology as AIIU needs foreign faculty from Pakistan to teach MS and Ph.D. level courses to reduce the faculty gap resulted after the US exit from Afghanistan.
The delegates affirmed that Pakistan and Afghanistan have been enjoying brotherly relations and the collaboration in higher education would further strengthen this relationship. The faculty exchange will bring about real change in the HE sector of Afghanistan, he added.
The delegates were keenly interested to develop cooperation for faculty exchange program and research collaborations with UET Peshawar. Prof. Dr. Iftikhar Hussain, Vice Chancellor UET Peshawar assured every possible support that might be helpful for AIIU in the fields of Mining, Agriculture and Structural Engineering running under the supervision of qualified Ph.D. faculty and state-of-the-art laboratories. He said, UET Peshawar has already enrolled 200 Afghan students at its undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
Dr. Safdar Nawaz, Director QEC UET Peshawar gave a detailed presentation of UET Peshawar’s academic and research activities. Mr. Jahenzeb Khan said, the Prime Minister of Pakistan has specifically directed HEC to establish collaborations in Higher Education in Afghanistan after visiting the leading education institutions. The HEC would enter into a larger agreement where a consortium of Pakistani universities would work together with AIIU in faculty exchange.
Prof. Dr. Qaisar Ali, Pro-Vice Chancellor, UET Peshawar, Prof. Dr. Sahar Noor, Dean Mechanical, Prof. Dr. Siraj-ul-Islam, Dean Architecture and Allied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Amjad Ullah, Dean Electrical, Dr. Khizar Azam Khan, Registrar, Prof. Dr. Misbah Ullah, Treasure, Prof. Dr. Hamidullah, Director Undergraduate Studies, Prof. Rawid Khan, Director Postgraduate Studies and other senior officials were present on the occasion.