A meeting of the Board of Faculty of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Sciences, University of Agriculture, Peshawar was held under chairmanship of Prof Mohammad Subhan Qureshi, Dean/Convener.
The Academic Council of the University was represented by Prof Mohammad Jamal Khan, Chairman, Water Management and Prof Mohammad Akmal, Agronomy Department. Other participants of the meeting were Prof Altaf ur Rahman, Prof Nazir Ahmad, Dr Umer Sadique, Dr Abdur Rahman and Dr Naila Chand. Dr Ihsanullah, Dr Mohammad Tahir (Sr), Dr Shoaib Sultan, Dr Zahoor ul Hassan and Dr Mubashir represented their respective departments as co opted members.
The participants were introduced the recent developments in the livestock sector. They were told that with the advent of current century the higher education and livestock were given special attention by the federal government and both of them came out of stagnancy, enabling their prominent role in the national development agenda.
The members appreciated the progress made and suggested further improvement through more effective utilization of the feed mills and registration of the accessible commercial dairy farms for technology transfer and data generation. The convener advised the faculty members for judicial utilization of the HEC scholarship, funded research projects, HEC/PCST schemes for access to lab analysis, etc. Splitting of the Animal Health Department into three Departments of Pre-clinical Sciences, Pathobiology and Clinical Sciences was agreed in principal as it was required of the Pakistan Veterinary Medical Council Act and the Department of Animal Health has got sufficient resources for creating two additional departments. Detailed consideration of the item under other relevant fora was recommended.
The Convener suggested improvement in the University rules for postgraduate studies, to attract high quality post-graduate students for admission into doctoral programs to develop valuable human resource base. GRE Subject of the NTS on the basis of 4 groups of subjects and HEC scholarship for MS leading to PhD was acceptable at national level and the University must also accept such cases. The relevancy of subject at master level for admission into PhD degree is another rule impeding fair competition. The house shared the concern and recommended for submission of such cases as separate agenda items to the relevant bodies. The participant noticed the growing industrialization in the livestock sector and called for improvement in the syllabus and internship of DVM to cope up with the challenges. The Convener informed the participants that on advice of the Vice Chancellor, the Faculty has proposed establishment of demonstration and research units at Amir Mohammad Khan Campus Mardan for poultry, quails, sheep, goats rearing, calves fattening and dairy farming. Services would be provided to the farmers through establishment of a veterinary hospital, a model abattoir, diagnostic laboratory for diseases, milk and feed analysis, and a farmer welfare and training center.
The upcoming Dairy Science Park scheduled on November 18-20, 2013 would be an excellent opportunity for training of students and young faculty, policy advice for the government, investment opportunity for the business community and a regional forum for strengthening cooperation among the neighboring countries, especially Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran, China and India.
The participants appreciated the progress made by the Faculty and expected for continuation of the same.
Source: The Frontier Post
