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AIOU PEC accreditation | Scholarship holders bound to return
AIOU places PEC at fault
Islamabad, April 28, 2008: The Allama Iqbal Open University on Saturday said
the accreditation of its BE Telecom programme was being delayed by the Pakistan
Engineering Council (PEC) and the university administration was in no way at
fault.
AIOU spokesperson Ubaidullah Mumtaz said the university had been
actively seeking accreditation of the programme since 2002 by repeatedly
submitting formal requests to the PEC, but the accreditation issue had not been
resolved.
According to him, the AIOU's programme follows HEC Scheme of
Studies and it has been approved by all the university statutory
bodies.
He said six different site visits had been conducted by the PEC
technical experts for accreditation, and the council contended that AIOU Act did
not allow the university to launch an engineering programme.
The BE
Telecom programme was launched in 2000 at Lahore and Rawalpindi. A total of 916
students enrolled in the programme during 2000-05 have graduated, few more
batches of students enrolled in 2004 and 2005 are at various stages of
completing their programme.
The spokesperson said two federal ministers
of education had written to the PEC that the AIOU Act did allow the university
to offer the programme, adding that the HEC chairman also wrote to the PEC that
the programme was approved by the Higher Education Commission. The university
provided detailed information to demonstrate compliance with the PEC criteria on
six different occasions since 2003.
27 scholarship holders bound to return Rs69.55m
Islamabad: The Auditor General has directed the Education
Division to recover Rs69.55 million from scholarship holders who did not join
their duties after completion of studies or failed to complete
studies.
In order to develop human resources and improve the quality of
manpower, Education Division launched different scholarship schemes for higher
studies abroad. The beneficiaries under these schemes furnished bonds to serve
in parent department for a period of at least five years, failing which, they
would reimburse all the expenditure incurred on their studies.
However it
was observed during the audit of the Education Division that out of a large
number of scholarship holders 27 did not return Pakistan after completing their
studies. Their education incurred approximately Rs76.16 million, which was
recoverable from them.
Besides the amounts of scholarship, air travel and
other charges were also recoverable from them but the amount could not be
calculated due to non-availability of record.
Audit report observed that
the division had not recovered the expenditure incurred on the training of these
officials in contravention of the provisions of the bond furnished by
them.
The report said that many of the scholarship holders did not return
to Pakistan, which not only caused huge losses to the national exchequer but
also the desired results were not achieved.
The situation required that
monitoring system should be streamlined in a way to plug all loopholes, enabling
the Division to achieve the desired objectives.
However, the report said
that out of the total recoverable amounts of Rs76,159,845 an amount of
Rs6,609,699 had been recovered. Remaining amount of Rs69,550,146 - 91.4 per cent
of the total amount - were to be recovered from the trainees. The report
directed the Education Division to (Training Wing) to recover balance amount by
pursuing the matter vigorously.
Meanwhile, the AG report also pinned down
the Federal Directorate of Education for financial irregularities.
While
the FDE was supposed to surrender to government anticipated savings, the
department transferred an amount of Rs37.824 million to Pak PWD out of capital
cost with the request to keep these funds reserved for the procurement of
furniture and laboratories equipment. Another amount of Rs4.118 million out of
this project was also transferred to Pak PWD with the request to keep these
funds reserved for the procurement of furniture and lab
equipment.
However, the report pointed out that transfer of the lapsable
funds to another departments non-lapsable account was against the
rules.
The report directed FDE to get the amount back from PWD and credit
the money into government treasury.
Teachers body calls for FDE abolition
Islamabad: The executive council of the Federal Government
College Teachers Association has demanded abolition of the Federal Directorate
of Education (FDE).
The association alleged that the SRO-225 of the
education ministry that served as a constitution of the FDE had constantly been
violated in the past through political appointments.
Presided over by
Prof Qasim Masud, a meeting of the executive body here on Saturday also
criticised the alleged violation of seniority rules in the appointments of
director colleges.
The meeting was attended by teachers from all the boys
and girls colleges falling in the FG city-A areas including F-10/4 Degree
College; Margalla Girls College; Postgraduate Girls College, F-7/2; Postgraduate
College, H-8; Degree College H-9; Girls College, G-10/4; FG Commerce College;
Sihala Degree College; Girls Commerce College, F-8; and Humak Degree
College.
The executive committee constituted a sub-committee that has
immediately started work on developing a working paper on the lacunas in the
federal education system and the problems faced by the teachers of Islamabad
region. The paper would be presented to Federal Minister for Education Ahsan
Iqbal, and would contain proposals for the upgradation of the syllabi of the
federal education and improving the wages and service structures of
teachers.
The association will also meet the education minister on May 30
and brief him on various issues being faced by the federal education
system.
"The working paper would be ready very soon," Prof Masud said.
He said the meeting had also criticised promotion of three teachers
from Basic Pay Scale (BPS) 19 to 20 a couple of weeks back. He alleged that
three senior teachers of the FG College F- 10/4 - Principal Mohammed Azhar, Prof
Abdul Latif and Prof Kazim Hussain - had been ignored in the recent
promotion.
Prof Masud said the working paper would contain a proposal for
the introduction of education services structure on the lines of Central
Superior Services (CSS). According to this proposal, all college teachers should
have to be appointed through competitive examinations like that of CSS. All the
college teachers should be given one year's training immediately after their
appointment in order to improve their communication skills. He said the working
paper would demand refresher courses and trainings on latest challenges and
issues for teachers after every five years.
He said another basic demand
was the introduction of the time scale. According to this system, college
teachers should be promoted from BPS-17 to 18 after completion of their
five-year services. After 12 years of service, the teachers should be promoted
from BPS-18 to 19, while after 17 years from BPS-19 to 20 and so on. Dawn
FJWU students face hostel, transport problem
Rawalpindi: Students of Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) are facing acute problems of transport and
accommodation.
FJWU was established in the old presidency building on
August 6, 1998 to provide higher education to women. This first women university
has 16 faculties and hundreds of students.
Transport problems: In the
absence of its own transport the FJWU students are facing many problems, as they
have no option but to use private or public transport. Students said that they were from remote districts and residing in seven hostels set up by the
university in hired buildings.
They said currently FJWU was using Islamic
International University Islamabad buses to transport students from hostels to
the university campus in two shifts. They said in the first and second shifts
bus picked students at 6.35am and 9.35am respectively. They said despite
overloading both the shifts failed to transport all the students and the
remaining have to hire taxis to reach the campus. The day scholars also face
similar problems, as they have to use public transport to and from the
university.
"I come from Sector G-11 and pay Rs 150 for cab daily to
reach the university in time," said Asma, a student of Environmental Sciences
Department. She said due to recent price hike the cabbies had increased the fare
and it had become very difficult for her to afford taxi. She said commuting in
public transport was time consuming and she had to change several vans to reach
the campus.
Another student Sehrish alleged that Vice Chancellor Dr
Saeeda Assadullah Khan was paying no attention to address the transport problem.
Hostel residents said the university had no hostel building and they were living
in seven private hostels acquired by the FJWU.
Hostels overcrowded: They
said five to six students had been allotted a room having capacity for three
persons. They said some times even 10 to 15 students were accommodated in a
single room and up to 20 students were sharing one washroom.
Substandard
food: Students said substandard food was being provided to them despite charging
Rs 10,000 per semester hostel charges and Rs 9,600 mess charges.
No
university authority was ready for comments regarding these problems, however an
associate professor said that they had some buses at the campus and
some would reach soon. Daily Times
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| Education News | | Updated: 17 May, 2012 |
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