Establishing a net-work of Universities and institution of higher education standard across Pakhtunkhwa and particularly in FATA will not only attract more and more students, but help in countering the growing extremism in the region, Prof. Dr. Ihsan Ali Told VOA Deewa Radio.

"We have enrolled about 7000 students including 36 percent of them girls in the past three years only at Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan and efforts are on to accommodate 6000 more students in the near future", said Dr. Ihsan Ali. He told Deewa Radio that at present, 64 Ph.D teachers are teaching at the University and an equal number have been awarded with scholarships to complete Ph.Ds in different subjects. He said that state of the art libraries and laboratories have been set up in several newly established universities.

Prof. Dr. Ihsan Ali (SI), Vice-Chancellor, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan is an eminent researcher, academician and administrator with outstanding record of distinguished services rendered in various fields.

As a student, he got gold medal in his MA Archaeology from University of Peshawar with record marks unbeaten to date, followed by his MA in Field Archaeology from The University College London, UK through British Council scholarship. He did his PhD from one of the world renowned seat of learning, Cambridge University, UK. He travelled worldwide and delivered lectures, in various universities of the world including New York, Pennsylvania, Harvard, Boston, Ohio and California State University in USA, Cambridge, Leicester, Southampton, Sheffield and Glasgow Universities in UK, ULM University Germany etc. He has published over 63 research papers and edited 17 different Volumes of Journals in Archaeology, for University of Peshawar, Peshawar Museum and Hazara University.

After being the Chair of Archaeology, University of Peshawar for three years (1997-2000), he was appointed as Director Archaeology & Museums, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2002, and during his tenure, he has established six Museums and started a new Journal "Frontier Archaeology". He was appointed the Vice-Chancellor of Hazara University in 2006 to reset the University which was turned into ruins by the devastating earthquake of October 2005. He not only rebuilt the university in the shortest possible time but also established its two campuses at Haripur & Havalien and later upgraded into independent universities.

In 2008, the Govt. assigned him the task of establishing Abdul Wali Khan University at Mardan, with nine Campuses, two of which have now attained the status of independent universities (Bacha Khan University, Charsadda & University of Swabi) and taken to a level where they are rated very high amongst the Public Sector Universities of Pakistan. The Government of Pakistan, recognizing the services, contributions and achievements of Prof. Dr. Ihsan Ali, awarded him with the distinctive Civil Award of "Sitara-e-Imtiaz" in 2013 in the field of Culture in which alone he has to his credit establishing nine Museums in different parts of Pakhtunkhwa.