Educational institutions are valid indicators of the future of a country. Unfortunately, this extremely vital area remained ignored. It really gives me great pleasure to learn that Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences (PIEAS) has now been given the degree award status after almost a decade of intense efforts and struggle. One wonders why programmes which are so obviously beneficial for the country's development are so unnecessarily delayed and who will bear the responsibility for the lost time? I would like to congratulate all those who have contributed in bringing PIEAS to its present status and also those responsible for awarding this very prestigious institution the much deserved degree award status.

PIEAS is poised to become a world class institution. Based on its associations with other R&D institutes, it has access to the best equipped research and development institutions; engineering laboratories; computer science and engineering centres; excellent industrial, agricultural, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy institutes and highly qualified and skilled manpower having no match elsewhere. An institution with an excellent past record, enhanced status and access to the best technical infrastructure in the country should be second to none amongst the institutions of its own type. PIEAS could concentrate in fields not covered adequately in traditional universities. The fields could include: nuclear engineering; systems engineering; computer science and engineering; information technology; nuclear medicine & radiotherapy; medical physics & technology; bio-engineering; environmental engineering as well as other newly evolving fields on the frontiers of knowledge. Let us all wish PIEAS well and pray that it develops into an institution not matched by many others in the world --- Ameen.