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University chaos
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Feb, 2008: Although a lot has been said boastfully about our good governance and
unprecedented educational reforms, in the media, with special emphasis on the
HEC's achievements, the actual state of affairs in our universities is pathetic
and disappointing. |
The mind-boggling voyage between the two universities that my
wife and I myself have been undergoing for the last two years, prompted me to
write this piece about the problems faced by students at our higher education
institutions. Both my wife and I are educationists but ill-treatment of
university staff has made us feel regretful over our being related to this noble
profession.
Two years ago, I bought the prospectus of Karachi University
to join a post graduate diploma course in the evening programme. The whole
composition, costing Rs300, was full of self-praise of the department staff but
was lacking required guidance for the students. When I contacted the concerned
department to know about three strange boxes in the admission forms labelled
'K', 'S' and 'P', I was informed that 'K' meant Karachiite, 'S' was for Sindhi
and 'P' referred to Pakistani. To my shock, I was rudely told not to pin much
hopes on getting admission as coming from an alien province (I came under
'Pakistani', the third category) I didn't have much of a chance of getting in.
This was rather offensive for someone who has been serving the city's reputed
public and private institutions as a teacher of language and literature for the
last nine years. I decided not to submit my forms and planned to do another
masters from the subject university as an external candidate.
Now the
plague of NOC awaited me. As my first masters degree was from the Punjab
University, I visited Lahore with the required documents for acquiring an NOC. A
new trap was already in place for me when I visited the university. My case was
rejected because I had not attached my intermediate certificate along with the
application. Would anybody tell me what my intermediate certificate has to do
with the university? As I only had my university degrees with me, I had to spare
my NOC adventure for my next visit to Lahore and came back to Karachi. Six
months later, I again set off to Lahore and submitted the case. I was told to
opt for either the normal procedure of getting an NOC in 15 days by post on
regular charges of Rs1,100 or for an urgent one (same day delivery) by
depositing Rs1,300. I opted for the second and was advised to visit the
department after three hours. When I reached there, the concerning person opened
a drawer, took out a writing pad, extracted a page, filled my particulars in the
blanks and lo and behold, the NOC was ready. Just imagine how something as
simple as that is made so enigmatic. Here, I must mention that a colleague of
mine got his NOC from the Islamia University, Bahawalpur, by paying only
Rs250.
Universities always award degrees to the successful candidates
automatically, but the University of the Punjab is unique in this matter - it
only awards result cards and one has to wait years for their degrees. As the
Karachi University did not recognise the Punjab University result card, I had
another tough battle on my hands. My wife, who did her MSc (Botany) in 1999,
applied for a leave and went all the way from Karachi to Lahore to initiate the
degree applications for the two of us. She had to spend a whole week there to
fulfill the unnecessarily complicated requirements after which she was told that
the degrees would be dispatched to her address within the next three months. But
when we didn't get our degrees after even three months, she requested her
father, who lives in Lahore, to contact the staff. Now it was the senior
citizen's turn to visit the university again and again for more than a year and
everyone that he approached there had one reply - that they didn't deal with the
matter. At last, my wife again had to go to Lahore and was shocked to experience
the irresponsibility of the university staff. Everyone there complained about
being short-staffed and she was advised to come the next day, everyday. This
went on for some two weeks after which she was told to initiate the process
again on a new form as they had misplaced the case. The process was started
again with me having to dispatch all the required documents from Karachi all
over again.
Both of us visited Lahore again after six months and
re-applied for the degrees. I was also told to get my form and the university's
own result card verified by a grade-17 officer. I went to a head of the
department, introduced myself, and asked for attestation. The form seemed
unnecessarily complicated even for him and he refused to help me. On the advise
of some students, I contacted the Jamiat office who sent out a boy to do my work
and within minutes I had the forms signed by the same person who had earlier
turned me down. Finally, I submitted the case and remained in contact with the
university staff on telephone from Karachi. When nothing happened even after
many months, we visited Lahore again. And again we were told to "please come
tomorrow" as the concerned person or people were not in that day.
I have
also sent detailed letters regarding the matter to the vice chancellor and
chancellor of the university but am still awaiting a reply, even after a lapse
of three months.
Recently when I was more vocal about my experience, I
realised that what I have been going through is nothing extraordinary.
"I
did my masters from the Punjab University a few years back and was declared
absent in a paper. My father had to really struggle to rectify the blunder. In
the end it turned out that a clerk had recorded the wrong information for the
wrong student. The marks I had obtained in that paper were added to the list
after many tiresome visits to the university. And no action was taken against
the concerning officials," says Alina Khan, a former student of the
university.
Sharing her feelings is Sayed Ahmed, a lecturer at a federal
government institute in Karachi, who says, "I wanted to get admission in BEd at
an affiliated college of the Karachi University. The forms I got had a box for
me to mention my mother tongue in. This must be the only country in the world
where education teaches us ethnic and lingual prejudice."
Meanwhile
Ruqaya Sultana of Bahawalpur, reports, "I got enrolled in a course offered by
Allama Iqbal Open University. Apart from sending me the syllabus, the concerned
department was also supposed to send me information about the appointed tutor
for guidance and assignment evaluation but even after sending several reminders
to the university, the tutor's name and contact was not passed on to me. So I
had to study on my own. Although I passed my exams, I still don't have a full
understanding of my subject."
By Muttahir Ahmed Khan (Dawn)
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| Education News | | Updated: 24 May, 2012 |
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