Lahore, The Business Development Consultant of the Northern Consortium UK (NCUK) Geoff Evans and Country Manager Hassan Khan Lodhi held a detailed meeting with the Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mujhaid Kamran in his office committee room here on Thursday. Pro Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Jamil Anwar Ch. , Registrar Prof Dr Muhammad Naeem Khan, Treasurer Dr Uzma Ikram, Director External Linkages Maria Maldonado were also present.

The meeting was called to hold preliminary discussions on the offer made by the NCUK that either PU students can spend one, two or three years in Pakistan and go to one of the 11 partner universities of the consortium to complete a degree in UK or they can complete their degrees in Punjab University for four years and get a degree from one of the partner universities. In his opening remarks, the Vice-Chancellor said that the PU agrees in principle to the consortium proposal, as it would guarantee substantial number of PU students' access to degree courses of one of the 11 host international universities in UK . He said currently a wide range of 35000 students are studying at PU as far as their economic background is concerned, while PU faculty members are among the best and are selected world wide for their teaching and research abilities. Dr Kamran, however, proposed to the visiting two member delegation that he would constitute an expert committee to go into the details in depth, before a formal MoU is signed with NCUK sometime during the next month.

Earlier, in his introductory remarks, Mr Geoff Evans apprised the participants about the Northern Consortium UK which currently is operating in 10 different countries in Asia, Europe and Africa with a total enrollment of 4000 students. He further said that -+PU collaboration with the NCUK would lead to joint collaborative research, staff and students exchanges, teachers training and English language development, besides brightening up chances for job opportunities of PU students both in the public and private sectors.

The meeting was also attended by Prof Dr Shahida Hussnian, Prof Dr Muhammad Ehsan Malik, Prof Dr Javaid Ahmad, Prof Dr Hafiz Muhammad Iqbal, Prof Dr Liaqat Ali and Prof Dr Qalb-e-Abid.