President Dr. Arif Alvi has advised Pakistan Institute of Fashion Design (PIFD) to build linkages with relevant stakeholders of the private sector in Art and Design to sharpen its students’ skills. This would give first-hand exposure to its students of Fashion Designing, Textile, Jewellery, Gemological Sciences, Furniture, Leather & Ceramic Design, and Marketing, about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the relevant industry. Addressing the 12th meeting of the Senate of PIFD, Lahore, at the President House, he said that it would also help equip the students with the knowledge and skills to bring quality and value to the products produced by the country.

The President also encouraged the institute to brainstorm the possibilities of creating joint ventures and linkages with relevant industries and invoking their Corporate Social Responsibility for securing their cooperation and inputs to further improve its services. He said the institute should make its rules and regulations, by-laws and standard operating procedures on a timeline basis by factoring in relevant government rules and regulations, besides benchmarking the best practices of similar reputed institutions.

He said that it would help further strengthen and expedite decision-making about academic, administrative and human resource matters, besides attracting and retaining highly qualified and experienced faculty, which would further improve good governance and add value to the institute. The President also endorsed the idea of creating an endowment fund by the university with the help of the Higher Education Commission as a part of its investment policy and the proceeds of which may be allocated to create additional revenue streams to achieve the objective of financial self-sustainability.
The President emphasized the need to organize quarterly meetings of the Senate and to hold frequent meetings of the committees made under the advice of the Senate or otherwise for expeditious decision-making in important matters and resolution of issues faced by the institute from time to time.

The Vice-Chancellor presented the agenda items, which were examined and deliberated upon by the Senate members and decisions were made. PIFD is a premier public sector institute, which offers M.Phil in Art and Design since 2017 and presently 1375 students are enrolled in its undergraduate programs in Fashion Design, Textile Design, Jewellery Design and Gemological Sciences, Furniture Design and Manufacturing, Leather Accessories and Footwear, Fashion Marketing and Merchandising, and Ceramic Design & Glassware. The employment rate of students who graduated from this institute is almost 100%.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk