Karachi: The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) is set to become Pakistan’s first municipality to establish and run a university.
The Sindh cabinet which met recently approved a draft to set up the Metropolitan University in Karachi under the aegis of the KMC. The incoming mayor will be the pro-chancellor of the new university whose central campus will be in the city’s Central District.
The existing Karachi Medical and Dental College (KMDC) will become an affiliated institution of the new university. Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, the third largest public health facility in Karachi, will be upgraded for providing due training and research facilities as the affiliated teaching hospital of the KMDC.
The upgrading of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital will also be beneficial for a large number of patients of the low-income groups who visit the facility regularly.
Karachi’s Administrator, Murtaza Wahab, greeted the residents of Karachi that a new university in the public sector was being established in the provincial capital after a decade of efforts.
He said the establishment of the Metropolitan University had fulfilled a longstanding demand of Karachi residents.
He said the presence of a new public sector university had become inevitable keeping in view the rapid expansion in the area and population of the city.
Karachi has a number of private universities but are not affordable to middle-income families who want that their children should get quality higher education, Wahab said.
He said the government and KMC would make sure that the Metropolitan University would become a leading seat of higher education in the city.
He emphasised that the university’s aim was to provide opportunities for students to excel and serve the nation.
