Karachi university MA External delay results

Delay in KU MA (External) results announcement
Karachi, Nov 24: The University of Karachi (KU) is unable to announce the results of three departments because some teachers of these departments have not submitted the results.

The defaulters come from three departments, Economics, English and International Relations (IR). According to a KU official, who requested anonymity, Chairman Economics Department, Dr Shafiqur Rehman, is one of the persons responsible for the delay while others from the same department include Saba Masood, Khalid Mustafa, Seema Siddiqui and Safia Qamar.

Fahimuddin, Farhan Hanif and Cooperative Teacher Faisal Awan are the ones who caused the delay in the IR department. The lone defaulter from English Department, Ibtisam Afreen, is the major defaulter as in addition to the MA External results she has yet to submit the results of BA (Supplementary) Exam.

An insider in the department confided that Afreen had lost or misplaced three to four examination scripts. Some students who are waiting for their results criticised the callousness of the teachers.

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'Aizaz-e-Sabqat' to be conferred on outstanding students
Karachi: Professor Qazi Arshad Hussain Siddiqui, Deputy Secretary-I/ESTT, Board of Intermediate Education, Karachi (BIEK) on Monday said that President of Pakistan will confer 'Aizaz-e-Sabqat Award' for outstanding students this year on Independence Day of Pakistan.

Each award comprises a medal, cash grant and travel allowance (as may be determined by the Ministry of Education, government of Pakistan). As many as 47 outstanding students will be conferred this award, he added. Professor Siddiqui also said that five students will be selected from Sindh.

One of these awards will be conferred to a student on cumulative result at Intermediate level. Besides, one award is bestowed to an all-rounder student from each of the provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Jammu Kashmir and FATA/FANA who has excelled him or herself in co-curricular and innovative activities as per evaluation and selection criteria whose merit is based on marks calculated on basis of pre-defined in Performa 'C(c)', he added.

Principals of the affiliated institutions are requested to identify the names of such students who have passed their HSC Examinations from BIEK in year 2009. Upon fulfilling the criteria, they should send the form to BIEK along with proforma duly completed in all respects, attested certificates/degree, copy of CNIC or Form B and domicile, latest by December 15, 2009 for onward transmission to the Education and Literacy Department, government of Sindh, for further necessary action in this matter, he added.

"Incomplete nominations and nominations without supporting documents will not be entertained. Merit should be strictly observed while nominating student for the said award," he said. The news

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Test for recruitment of 5 to 15 grade staff
Karachi: The Sindh Education Department has failed to produce the record of the test held for the recruitment of lower cadre staff from grade 5 to 15 while hundreds of candidates, some of them are already working in different colleges on contract basis, are waiting for the results since August 2008.

The department has deliberately lost the test results including the merit list so that backdoors could be opened for politically-motivated recruitments in the City colleges, while politicians and bureaucracy are involved equally in this conspiracy, said the candidates alleged.

The department's announcement to reorganise the test for the recruitment under the supervision of newly appointed Regional Director (Colleges) Najma Niaz is a conspiracy against the candidates who do not have links with political parties, said the complaints. It is to be mentioned here that the last year, former Sindh Regional Director (Colleges) Munnawar Shafiq conducted the test to make recruitment of lower cadre employees from grade 5 to 15 in about 135 colleges. But the and record and results o the test have been lost.

Sindh Regional Director (Colleges) Najma Niaz said that the department was going to reorganise the test for the recruitment of lower cadre staff for 135 colleges. "Applications are being received while the last date for submission of applications is November 26, 2009," she elaborated. She said that the test would be conducted for 650 vacant seats of lower cadre staff.

"Look the former regional director did not leave any record regarding the test in the office; when I asked her about the record she had refused to give me any detail and told me that details had been given to Secretary Education Rizwan Memon. The nation

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NED University closure on account of winter vacations
Karachi: The NED University of Engineering and Technology Karachi will remain closed from December 1 to 31 on account of winter vacations. This was announced by NED Registrar Engineer Javed Aziz Khan on Monday.

He said the administration department, laboratories and workshops would remain open and the staff would also perform their normal duties during the vacation. APP

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St Joseph's Miss Fikree passed away
Karachi: In the corridors of St Joseph's Convent High School she was referred to as Senior or 'Bari' Fikree in order to prevent confusion with her niece Fauzia or Junior Fikree. In the staff room, she was Shafiqa or Miss Fikree, depending on whether she had taught you or not. At home, she was Essie - SE - short for Shafiqa Ebrahim. In high-heeled shoes she was barely five feet tall, but as hundreds of women, young and old, will testify today, the demise of this legendary teacher has left us a legacy that is immeasurable and indescribable.

At about 4:15 am Monday, Shafiqa Fikree passed away at the age of 76 after a brief illness which doctors believe was pneumonia that culminated in a heart attack. It was extremely unexpected for many because she was in school just a few days earlier. Indeed this was a double tragedy for her family, as her sister, Miss Fauzia Fikree's mother Umahani, had died barely two months ago.

Miss Fikree was born in Aden in 1933. Her father Ebrahim Mohammad Aqeel Fikree was a businessman who traded in coffee. Ebrahim and his wife Shaharaban hailed from Bastak and Lingah, small towns on the southern coast of Iran. In addition to one son, the couple had six daughters - Gulzar, Ruqaiya, Fatima, Hafsa, Umahani and Shafiqa. When Miss Fikree was six years old, the family moved to Karachi upon the outbreak of WWII. Her father had feared that the Germans would overrun Aden as it was a British colony.

While the family was conservative, Miss Fikree, who joined St Joseph's Convent High School in 1962 as a Geography teacher, became famous for her cancan skirts with stiff petticoats. Colleagues Faiza Kazi and Nina Sethna recalled her "Scarlett O'Hara" waist clinched in belts with a handkerchief tucked in the side. She wore her hair short in a bouffant bob and her nails were always painted. It was only much later that she started wearing shalwar kameez, but even they were sleeveless. And no living St. Joseph's student will have ever seen a hair out of place or her immaculately pinned chiffon dupattas creased.

This attention to detail and ironclad discipline was not just limited to her person, it pervaded every other aspect of her life. No one could telephone the house between 6 pm and 7 pm because she was on her walk, which she took without fail right up to her last days. She was also extremely careful about her diet and maintained her hourglass figure to the end.

Weddings were a "waste of time" and she would grumble when she attended them. Most of her spare time was spent preparing for class. She would sit at the tile-topped kitchen table, put on her favourite Hallmark channel and spread out her papers. Tests were always held, come hail or high water, and she never rose her voice above 50 decibels.

She adored dark chocolate but rationed herself. She took an immense liking to green tea, but gave up sugar in it. And she read and read and read, even starting up a small, heavily guarded library for the senior section.

Former principal Sr Zinia Pinto, who joined the staff room in the same year as her, made Miss Fikree headmistress of the Cambridge section precisely because of these traits. "She never stooped on a principle," said Sr Zinia. "She was simple and very eager to learn. In her, I met an ideal teacher." The two became deeply close over the five decades and it was with a lump in her throat on Monday that Sr Zinia said she had lost "a good friend".

The Cambridge section teachers are now wondering how they are going to go back to the staff room without Miss Fikree in it. Many of them, such as Muna Kazi Pathan, were her students themselves, and learnt their trade from her. "There was dew this morning," said Muna, who models her Literature classes on Miss Fikree's method. "And I couldn't help but think of her. You couldn't hear about any geographical thing without thinking of her - whether it was a 'westerly wind' or a 'depression'."

According to student Durriya Kazi, Miss Fikree would come to class with a plastic orange ball with a knitting needle driven through it. That was her geography globe. She would whip out her handkerchief to use as an aid to draw perfect circles on the blackboard. "I feel as if a whole section of that building has crumbled with her," said Durriya, who now heads the Visual Studies department at the University of Karachi.

When asked how school will be without Miss Fikree, Mrs Nina Sethna brought her hand close up to her face, pressed her thumb and finger together and squinted: "She was the safety pin that held us all together."

Indeed, it is difficult to imagine who could ever fill her shoes. And it will be nigh impossible to find anyone with the same devotion. While her first salary was 500 rupees, which was a handsome amount in 1962, everyone knows the teachers at St Joseph's do not work for the money today. Miss Fikree was so devoted, however, that, as her niece Fauzia Fikree recalled, "she wanted to teach even if it was a holiday."

As one of her students, Zeevar Scheik put it, her demise is the end of an era but not of her legacy. Daily times

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