The Aga Khan University Faculty of Arts and Sciences (AKU-FAS) Master Plan establishes a framework for the inception and long-term growth of a new campus on 560 acres of arid scrubland 30 kilometers outside Karachi, Pakistan. AKU-FAS will be the major component of Education City, a regional development of schools and institutes that will eventually cover 8,000 acres.
via The Aga Khan University, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Master Plan.
Location: Karachi, Pakistan. The site is a 45-minute trip from central Karachi—initially to be linked by rubber tire transit—but lies within a primary growth corridor and is projected to be part of the city proper in two decades
An international organization is creating a liberal-arts university campus and accompanying “village” in Karachi, Pakistan, to “train a new generation of leaders to view knowledge as a never ending quest, necessarily shared across many disciplines and world views.” The campus has been designed. This submission represents the Land Use Plan that is the first step in developing the villages land uses, spatial organization, circulation, public spaces, and character. The 450 acre campus and 700 acre village occupy an arid site that represents the first—and so far only—component for a government-designated (but unplanned) ”education city”. The site is a 45-minute trip from central Karachi—initially to be linked by rubber tire transit—but lies within a primary growth corridor and is projected to be part of the city proper in two decades. The Land Use Plan has been approved by the organization’s board and the university’s president and board. Pakistan’s political situation has slowed implementation, but development of both the campus and the village have been funded.
via Aga Khan University-FAS Land-Use Study | Congress for the New Urbanism.
via The Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU)
Earlier related: AKU Receives Planning Award
Aga Khan University Faculty of Arts and Sciences wins SCUP Merit Award for Excellence in Planning
http://www.aku.edu/university/adp/akufas.shtml
Dr. Robert Armstrong
Associate Professor and Head of Pediatrics
University of British Columbia
Chief of Pediatric Medicine, BC Children’s Hospital
and BC Women’s Hospital Provincial Health Services Authority
Dr. Robert Armstrong was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Following his undergraduate degree at Simon Fraser University, he went on to complete MD, MSc, and PhD degrees at McMaster University, as well as specialty training in pediatrics and developmental pediatrics at McMaster University and the University of British Columbia (UBC).
“Drawing on Islamic City-Building Traditions to Create a 21st Century Community of Learning”
David Dixon, FAIA – Principal in charge of Planning and Urban Design
Goody, Clancy & Associates
The Aga Khan is building a new liberal arts campus on the outskirts of Karachi. The campus’ mission emphasizes interdisciplinary thinking and seeks to encourage people of different backgrounds to learn from each other and bring a new generation of leadership in addressing global economic, social, cultural and environmental challenges. To support this new campus, the Aga Khan commissioned planning for a new “university village” for more than 20,000 people that would take its inspiration from Islamic city building values of human scale, environmental fit, and nuanced transitions between public and private spaces. This village represents a “community of learning” that through its planning both addresses the realities of 21st century life in Pakistan and reinforces the campus’ mission by fostering informal interaction, shared civic experience, and sense of connection to the surrounding environment.
SCUP/AIA-CAE Excellence in Planning for a New Campus, Honor Award
Faculty of Arts and Sciences Master Plan at the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan
and Payette in Boston, MA
Earlier related: Architectural award for Aga Khan University’s new campus in Education City
Post Updated: Please note that this is the new Faculty of Arts & Sciences. Previous news here. Few more references is provided in the comments section of this post for your review.
A Muslim university would be established by the Aga Khan and the Ismaili community with a total investment of about $ 500 million, the president of the Aga Khan Ismaili Council, Iqbal Waljee, said in Karachi on Thursday. He said 1,000 acres of land has been acquired for the purpose on Super Highway in Karachi. The Aga Khan will lay the foundation stone, he said adding that acadamic activity will start from 2011. Waljee said the silver (golden) jubilee year of the Aga Khan as the spiritual head of the Ismaili community is being marked from July 2007 to July 2008 and will be marked by a series of high profile programmes including the lecture series by Karen Armstrong on intellectual traditions in Islam.
By John Oywa
The AGA Khan Health Services is set to build a $250 million (Sh15.7 billion) hospital and medical training complex in Nairobi.
When completed by 2011, the state-of-the-art facility would be the only one of its kind in East and Central Africa and will rival the Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi, Ms Asmita Gillani, said preparations for the construction of the new hospital and medical training institution were complete.
“It will be one of the best equipped in the world and East Africans will not need to travel to Europe or the US for specialised treatment. They will get in Nairobi,” she said.
Speaking in Kisumu, Gillani said the medical complex will include an undergraduate medical training centre and a nursing college.
“We have acquired land and work is set to begin,” she said.
She said the Aga Khan University Hospital was installing new medical technology costing $43 million (Sh2.7 billion) to handle cardiac related illnesses and would soon launch new equipment for cancer treatment.
Earlier Stories of the launch of AKU’s Faculty of Health Sciences in Nairobi Kenya
WALTER WAFULA
KAMPALA
STUDENTS pursuing health science degrees in East Africa will have an alternative of realising their academic dreams when the Aga Khan University sets up a new faculty of Health Sciences in Kenya.
Aga Khan University (AKU) which has a global presence, will expand its health education programmes in East Africa by setting up a faculty of health sciences at the institution’s campus in Nairobi.
The revelation was made by Dr David Taylor, the acting AKU provost, at this year’s graduation ceremony for the Advanced Nursing Studies Programme in Kampala yesterday.
The faculty estimated to cost $250 million (Shs437 billion) will be in place by 2010 and is expected to comprise a medical college, school of nursing and allied health programmes.
Dr Taylor said the faculty would offer bachelors, masters, postgraduate and doctorate courses in medicine, nursing and related health disciplines.
“The campus will be built to the highest international standards. The hospital will also promote relevant high impact research, particularly in the areas of health services and epidemiology that can positively influence national health policies,” he said.
Dr Taylor said work on the new heart and cancer centre at the university’s teaching hospital in Nairobi would begin soon.
“This $40 million [over Shs70 billion] initiative will replace and enhance existing facilities in the hospital’s surgery, obstetrics, critical care and imaging centres and provide facilities for tertiary treatment services in cardiology and cancer,” he said.
A total of 19 graduands were awarded Bachelors of Science degrees in nursing, while 33 students earned diplomas in general nursing. Ms Lucy Nsubuga, Ms Christine Nabalonde, Ms Juliet Nabbowa Businge and Joash Magambo Isabirye were recognised for outstanding performance.
The Minister of Health, Dr Stephen Mallinga, said the graduates would compliment government’s efforts to reinforce health personnel in the country and the need to have well trained medical workers.
http://www.akdn.org/speeches/2007Aug14_fhs.htm
Honourable Minister for Education Professor George Saitoti
Honourable Ministers
Excellencies
Chairman Dehlavi and the Members of the Aga Khan University Board of Trustees
President Firoz Rasul
Generous donors and well wishers of the University
Distinguished guests
My thanks go out to all of you for sharing in this occasion with me. It is a special one for many reasons – including my close ties over so many years to this country, and to so many here whose friendship has enriched my life.
It was just one month ago that I celebrated my 50th year as Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims. We are marking that occasion with a series of visits to places where our community has been most deeply rooted. This visit to East Africa is the first of those tours – and that is most appropriate, given Nairobi’s central role both in our community life and in so many activities of the Aga Khan Development Network – including, of course, the educational work of the Aga Khan University.
A golden jubilee is a valuable opportunity for putting the present into historical perspective. In that spirit, I would begin today by emphasizing how my concern for education grows intimately out of my family history. It was just a century ago that my late Grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, began to build a network of educational institutions which would eventually include some 300 schools, many of them in East Africa.
My late Grandfather, who was also the founding figure of Aligarh University in India, was renewing a tradition which stretches back over 1000 years, to our forefathers, the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs of Egypt, who founded Al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. And going back even further, I would cite the words of the first hereditary Imam of the Shia Muslims, Hazrat Ali Ibn Abi Talib, who emphasized in his teachings that “No honour is like knowledge.”
Those words have inspired an emphasis on education within our tradition ever since that time. That tradition has been expressed in recent decades in many ways, ranging from the sponsorship of Madrasa early childhood projects to the founding of the Aga Khan University and the University of Central Asia. We are also establishing a new network of Aga Khan Academies – outstanding residential primary and secondary schools – teaching the International Baccalaureate and covering no less than 14 countries in Africa and Asia. The first of these is already functioning in Mombasa – I will visit there tomorrow to launch the building of its new residential campus.
The Aga Khan University (AKU) itself opened officially in 1983 in Pakistan where, I am happy to note, it has been voted as the country’s leading university, and where it is now establishing a new under-graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences. AKU is also planning a number of new post-graduate schools in Pakistan and Eastern Africa, to meet important needs in both areas. Amongst these Graduate Schools will most probably be “Architecture and Human Settlement”, “Media and Communications”, “Tourism and Leisure”, “Management” and “Government, Public Policy and Civil Society”.
AKU’s expanding presence now includes teaching sites in eight countries, three of them in East Africa, working primarily in the fields of medicine, nursing and education – the East African sites now enroll fully one-third of all AKU students.
This brings me to a central point of these remarks, which is to announce another major step forward for the University. Building on the success of its existing programmes – the Aga Khan University is planning to establish a new Faculty of Health Sciences here in Nairobi. To my knowledge, this will be the first private sector university in Eastern Africa to create a full-fledged Faculty of Health Sciences offering under-graduate and post-graduate degrees in Medicine, Nursing and the allied health sciences.
The central challenge of this new faculty will be to address the crucial health care priorities of the East African population – and indeed all of sub-Saharan Africa – from Sudan to Mozambique, from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic.
The new Faculty of Health Sciences will educate future generations of professional leaders in the evidence-based practice of medicine. Emphasizing both teaching and research, it will be accompanied by a major expansion of the Aga Khan University Hospital here, including a new Heart and Cancer Centre, which is scheduled to begin construction this year.
What we envision here in the coming years is an institution of some 1000 students and 175 faculty members, admitting students on a merit basis. Our new facilities, including a teaching hospital of 500 beds, will eventually occupy some 80,000 square meters. The total investment over the next fifteen years will be about 250 million dollars. When the project is complete, the Aga Khan University in Kenya alone will employ over 4000 people.
Let me add some further comments about the background to this massive engagement:
To begin with, it should be said in all candor that the recent history of higher education in numerous less developed countries has been discouraging. Many development policy makers in the 1960’s and 1970’s simply did not see higher education as a priority concern – instead they incorrectly calculated that they could not justify the cost of higher education from the foreseeable productivity of university graduates. As a result, some African countries which had strong institutions of higher education at the time of their independence, now find themselves unable to achieve even minimum global standards.
This sad situation demands urgent attention. In responding, we can try to learn from the successful examples of others. One reason for the success of American higher education, for example, is its highly diversified base – it looks to a mix of national, state, and local governments for support – as well as to the private sector. It thus serves a host of different constituencies, and provides a variety of essential specialities. I believe that the developing countries of Asia and Africa will likewise be well-served by encouraging private, self-governing institutions to develop side by side with those which are supported by the public sector.
The challenges of developing any new university are immense. They are massive consumers of human and material resources – even when they fall short of world-class standards. This means that the sponsors of new universities in the developing world will need to make significant long term commitments – and be capable of keeping them. They will also need access to the right human resources, as well as global perspectives on higher education, and a sense of complete dedication to the highest educational standards.
AKU is developing close partnerships with universities and centres of excellence around the world. It is also expanding geographically – throughout the East African region, for example. But for its work to be optimized here in Kenya – especially in the field of health sciences – processes such as accreditation and the recognition of medical credentials may need reviewing.
While Eastern Africa presently lacks a strong private university sector, this trend is changing. My hope is that the commitment we are announcing today will encourage other private initiatives, while also encouraging educators from the public sector to welcome private institutions as complementary players rather than as competitive ones.
The initiative we are describing today blends the realm of education with the realm of health care – so let me take a moment to say that our concern for health care also has deep and well-developed roots. The Ismaili Community in Kenya has been closely involved in health care in this country for many years, and numerous members of the community have become doctors, dentists, pharmacologists and nurses. Meanwhile, the community and the Ismaili Imamat have fostered the development over fifty years of the Aga Khan Hospitals in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. These institutions, staffed by some of the most talented professionals from within the Ismaili community and from outside, have, I believe, served the surrounding populations with integrity and commitment. The Aga Khan Hospital here in Nairobi was the first multi-racial hospital in colonial Kenya, and it has recently set another new precedent by becoming the first private sector hospital in Kenya to educate in medicine and nursing, through its new affiliation with the Faculty of Health Sciences of AKU in Pakistan.
Earlier, I discussed the need for private and public cooperation in the field of education. The same approach is also needed in the field of medicine. I am aware of perceptions that private health care in Kenya is expensive – health care worldwide, in fact, is becoming more expensive every year. Sophisticated equipment is increasingly costly, and new technologies are replacing old ones at shorter and shorter intervals. More and more, the treatment of complex cases is calling for teams of specialized professionals rather than single generalists.
The Aga Khan Hospitals in Kenya, and everywhere else they exist – in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tanzania – operate on a non-profit basis – no dividends are ever distributed, but they also aim to operate on a break even, self-sustaining basis. In this way, if new external funding is available, it can provide for expanded facilities, new buildings and expensive new equipment, rather than compensating for operating losses. This is the only way that private institutions can provide ever-improving services, which will, in turn, have a beneficial impact on the quality of medical practice for the whole of society.
Even as we recognize the realities of private medical care, so we must recognize the importance of the public health care sector. In discussing this topic, I want to acknowledge the importance of the Kenyan Ministry of Health’s assertive push towards a national health sector strategic plan. Such plans are essential not only for Kenya, but also for other developing countries. They should, no doubt, be drawn in wide consultation with all the stakeholders, including those from the private sector, who are the majority providers in Kenya.
In such plans, the question of human resources will be central. How will Kenya retain as many of its qualified practitioners as possible, reversing the trend toward a greater foreign migration of medical and nursing personnel? How can we attract back the Kenyan professionals who have left to practice elsewhere? The answers will be complex. But the creation of a world class health care faculty for the Aga Khan University, and the expansion of its teaching hospital, should make an important contribution to that goal, and thus to the achievement of global best practice standards throughout the region.
Thank You.
http://www.akdn.org/speeches/2007Aug14_frasul.htm
Bismillah-ir Rahman-ir Rahim
Honourable Minister for Education, Professor George Saitoti
His Highness the Aga Khan, Chancellor of the Aga Khan University
Excellencies, Ambassadors and High Commissioners
Chairman and Members of the Board of Trustees of the Aga Khan University
Distinguished Guests
Jambo and Karibu
It is a great honour for me to be here to celebrate the inauguration of the Aga Khan University’s Faculty of Health Sciences in East Africa.
Today marks an important milestone for the University and we feel privileged to have the Honourable Professor Saitoti grace this historic occasion. The Government of Kenya and specifically, the Ministry of Education have extended valuable support to AKU in the establishment and accreditation of the Aga Khan University in Kenya. For this support, Honourable Minister, we are truly grateful. It is my hope that we will continue to benefit from the enthusiastic support and encouragement of the Government of Kenya.
I would also like to express our appreciation to the Professional Medical and Nursing Bodies for their advice and support, particularly in our efforts to recruit faculty and staff and to enable us to train local talent and strengthen capacity. It is said that a building can only stand tall if its foundations are strong. In the case of a university, a solid faculty is the foundation upon which its students can achieve great heights. Working together, we are setting new standards in health sciences education and practice to develop highly capable doctors and nurses that can then serve their own communities.
Story by JEFF OTIENO
Publication Date: 8/14/2007
The Aga Khan University Hospital’s faculty of health sciences was inaugurated in Nairobi yesterday.
 The Aga Khan and Education minister George Saitoti look at the design of the university’s Heart and Cancer Centre yesterday. Photo/WILLIAM OERI |
It is the first of a series of projects, aimed at developing the region, to be initiated by the Aga Khan during his visit to East Africa as part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations as the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims.
The project makes Aga Khan University the first private university in eastern Africa to have a fully-fledged faculty of health sciences offering under-graduate and post-graduate degrees in medicine, nursing and allied health sciences.
It is part of a $250 million (Sh17.5 billion) investment at the institution, spanning a period of 15 years, and will host some 1,000 students and 175 faculty members once completed.
More at the Nation Media
 His Highness the Aga Khan being welcomed by Ambassador Saidullah Khan Dehlavi, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Aga Khan University. Photo credit: Gary Otte |
 His Highness the Aga Khan with President of the Aga Khan University, Firoz Rasul and CEO of the Aga Khan University Hospital Nairobi, Asmita Gillani. Photo credit: Gary Otte |
 His Highness the Aga Khan and Professor George Saitoti, Kenyan Minister for Education at the ceremony which marked the launch of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Aga Khan University. Photo credit: Gary Otte |
 His Highness the Aga Khan speaking at the launch of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Aga Khan University. Photo credit: Gary Otte |
 His Highness the Aga Khan and Professor George Saitoti, Kenyan Minister for Education unveil a plaque to commemorate the launch of the Faculty of Health Sciences. Photo credit: Zahir Daya |
 His Highness the Aga Khan and Professor George Saitoti with the architect of the new Faculty of Health Sciences, Farouk Noormohamed reviewing artists renderings of the new Faculty. Photo credit: Gary Otte |
http://www.akdn.org/news/2007Aug13.htm
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Press Release |
For Immediate Release |
Aga Khan University Announces
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AKU all set to open new campus
KARACHI: The Aga Khan University is waiting for the No Objection Certificate (NoC) from the Sindh government for its new campus on Link Road, Super Highway.
This was stated by the newly appointed President, Firoz Rasul, to the media on Tuesday.
He said that the AKU is all set to expand its faculties at the outskirts of city prior to the permission of the Sindh government. The expansion of this new campus is expected in the next five years.
Firoz said that under this expansion programme, a new project would be initiated, which will include setting up of Arts and Science faculties. The project would offer undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, while the campus will also be home to several professional graduate schools or faculties, he added.
He informed mediamen that the AKUH is planning to increase the number of beds with the existing number of 540, while enhanced services will be provided in urban and rural areas of the country.
He pointed out that the university is also assisting poor and deserving patients through Patient Welfare Programme, who cannot afford the high-quality care offered by the AKUH and added that over Rs240 million were spent annually under this programme.
Firoz Rasul observed that a major challenge for AKU is to ensure that patients admitted to the hospital are provided with better medical facilities and proper treatment.
