Dengue chapter in Punjab schools syllabus

Shahbaz for inclusion of one chapter on dengue in syllabus
Lahore, Sep 17: Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has stressed upon provincial ministers, advisors, elected representatives and the secretaries of various departments to set aside their official status and strive, like ordinary workers, to eliminate dengue virus and server humanity.

He also issued directions to include a chapter in the syllabus from class one regarding protection from dengue virus and other preventive measures against the disease. He was presiding over a meeting regarding elimination of dengue virus and the steps taken to cope with the problem, here on Friday. National and provincial assembly members, the chairmen of town committees, the secretaries of various departments and experts were also present.

The chief minister said bureaucratic formalities should not be allowed to impede the process of exterminating dengue virus and the required machinery and other material available anywhere should be airlifted for the provision of better medical facilities to the people.

He asked private laboratories not to consider the natural calamity as an opportunity for profiteering. He said that government would not hesitate from any action if the blood testing charges were not made affordable to the poor people. He said that a long-term policy was being evolved to eradicate dengue virus and a special cadre was being set up for the purpose.

The CM said that all available resources were being utilized for providing best treatment facilities to the dengue patients. He said that eight filter clinics would start functioning at various places in the provincial metropolis for which modern machines had been brought from Karachi by air.

He said that Social Security Hospital, Manga Raiwind Road, had also been allocated for dengue patients and modern machinery, air-conditioners and diagnostic facilities had been provided there.

He said that, due to rush of patients in the major hospitals of Lahore, air-conditioned camps should be set up in their lawns for providing medical facilities to the patients, issuing orders to give final shape to a plan in this regard.

He said the cooperation being extended by the private hospitals in providing free treatment to the dengue patients was commendable. When told that private laboratories were charging exorbitant fees for blood test, the CM said that private laboratories should realize their responsibility and serve the ailing humanity, instead of indulging in profiteering. He said that a committee comprising elected representatives and health department officials should negotiate with the owners of private laboratories and fix the rate of these tests.

Dengue being a viral disease, there was a need to evolve both short and long-term planning for its control, he said, adding that a special taskforce, headed by the Chief Secretary, had started working and steps would be taken in the light of its recommendations for curbing viral diseases. The news

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Private schools urged to ensure anti-dengue spray
Lahore: Member National Assembly and Chairman Emergency Response Committee for Dengue Virus, Ravi Town has stressed upon the owners of private educational institutions to ensure anti-dengue spray in their schools and colleges within holidays announced by the government, otherwise stern action would be taken against the persons violating the government instructions.

He passed these instructions while chairing a meeting of Emergency Response Committee for Dengue Virus, Ravi Town here on Friday which was attended by MPA Dr. Asad Ashraf, TMO, SP Special Branch, DDO Health Dr. Hamid Raffique and other concerned officers of various departments.

The meeting was informed that 15 government schools after buying spray pumps and medicines had started spray in school buildings. Moreover owners of factories functioning in Ravi Town were being called upon to ensure spray of anti-dengue virus along with adopting the precautionary measures during working hours, he added.

Later on, Chairman Malik Muhammad Riaz and Doctor Asad Ashraf inspected the quality of spray pumps and said that spray pumps of better quality could give affective results in less time.

He warned the private laboratories and dengue investigation camps running under government supervision to ensure free tests of dengue virus. The meeting was further told that IR spray had been done in 6 union councils of Ravi Town on Friday. The nation

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Registration of 10 schools cancelled
Lahore: The Executive District Officer (Education) Lahore has failed to ensure the implementation of government s order regarding closure of private schools in the wake of growing dengue fever.

A number of private schools in different localities of the provincial metropolis kept their campuses open on Friday exposing uncaring attitude of these schools towards innocent students and indifferent attitude of the EDO Lahore towards private schools.

EDO office, however, claimed through media reports that it had cancelled the registration of around 10 schools for opening up their campuses despite holidays announced by the government. The News could not reach EDO Pervaiz Akhtar despite repeated attempts on his cell phone. An SMS was also sent to him seeking data of the private schools whose registration was cancelled but to no avail.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Punjab government had announced closure of all educational institutions, public as well as private, in Lahore district till September 24. Punjab University s Institute of Education & Research (IER) had announced to organise Golden Jubilee Postgraduate Students Conference 2011 in connection with the golden jubilee celebration of the institute on Saturday (today).

However, a number of students seeking anonymity said it was strange that the PU administration was organising a gathering of students at a time when all the public and private varsities of Lahore were closed on the orders of Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif in the wake of growing dengue fever cases. Lahore College for Women University will remain open on Saturday (today) for fumigation and spray against dengue virus.

Meanwhile, rumours kept circulating that the government might allow reopening of private educational institutions from September 19 (Monday) following submission of certificates by these institutions with assurances that they would ensure maximum anti-dengue measures. However, official sources denied any such possibility.

Spray campaign: Punajb Teachers Union (PTU) in a meeting held on Friday overviewed anti-mosquito spray campaign in the provincial metropolis. In a press statement, PTU president said fumigation campaign in all government, primary and higher secondary schools of Lahore have been completed.

He chaired the meeting. He said all educational institutes had bought spray machines. He also lauded Chief Minister s and EDO Education s efforts to curb dengue.

Meanwhile, Muslim Teachers Federation (MTF) Punjab in a press statement has demanded of the Punjab government to shut the schools across the province.

MTF Punjab Chairman Mian Naeem Ahmad, President Mukhtar Hussain and other officials said that as dengue fever was spreading to other cities of Punjab so the government should close schools across the province to ensure proper fumigation and other preventive measures. The news

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OIC terms UAF, AKU top Pak universities
Faisalabad: The Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) has ranked the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad second best Pakistani university after Agha Khan University.

This was stated by Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Vice Chancellor of UAF, while addressing the Assistant Professor's meeting as a chief guest held on Friday at New Senate Hall of the university. Dr Iqrar urged the young scientists to explore new avenues as a global researcher as a lot of funding opportunities were available in various funding agencies and global universities in many disciplines. He said that the Australian Nobel Laureate in Microbiology Mr. Berry Marshal has agreed to supervise PhD & post doctoral scholars from the UAF and he asked the young faculty members to enhance their capacity under the supervision of the said Nobel prize winner.

Dr Iqrar said due to highest standard of education & research, the number of research projects being run by the university's scientists has increased fourfold during the last three years as in the said tenure, the UAF have won 214 external funded projects worth of Rs. 1085 million as compare to 70 projects worth 200 million three years back. Talking about pay system, he said traditional Basic Pay Scale System is being replaced with Tenure Track System in Public Sector the universities have adopted this mechanism keeping in view enhancement of teaching standards. Now, it is the era of the TTS as it plays pivotal role in grooming of the teachers he said, adding that the teachers on TTS enjoy 30 percent increase in their salaries in the financial year as compare to 15 percent in BPS.

Terming the educationists an engine of growth, he urged them to expedite the pace of work for the development of country as well as common man as he said salaries of the educationists are being paid from the taxes of the common man so they should leave no stone unturned to come up to the expectations of the society and for the welfare of the nation.

Prof Dr Asif Ali, Director of Office of Research, Innovation & Commercialization (ORIC) UAF, said on the occasion that the faculty members are taking keen interest in the research as it could be gauged from the fact that as many as 365 research projects worth 3,000 million are in pipeline that will be executed soon. The nation

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GCU, UoE extend date of form submission to 22nd
Lahore: A number of public universities of the provincial metropolis have extended last date for admissions to various academic programmes in the wake of the Punjab government s holidays at educational institutions because of growing dengue cases.

Government College University (GCU) has extended the last date for submission of admission forms for BA/BSc (Hons) to September 22, 2011. The decision in this regard was taken on Friday by Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Khaleeq-ur-Rahman keeping in view the ongoing situation of rain and dengue virus. GCU Registrar Anjum Nisar informed the media that entrance test for admission to the MS/MPhil would be held as per already announced schedule. Meanwhile, University of Education has also extended the date of admissions in intermediate based programmes at varsity s Bank Road, Lower Mall, Joharabad, Multan, Okara, DG Khan Campuses and Division of Science and Technology from September 16 to September 22, 2011. Now the students can submit their admission forms till September 22 up by 4:00pm. The decision was taken by Vice Chancellor Dr Faiz-ul-Hasan. It is expected that Punjab University, where September 17 (today) is the last date for submission of forms, will also extend the date to facilitate the admission seeking students. The news

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Professors' another article found plagiarised
Lahore: A three-member probe committee investigating a plagiarism case committed by a couple - who are serving as professors of chemistry in the Punjab University and the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore - has found another research article plagiarised by the two authors.

The Punjab University administration were reported two research articles authored by Punjab University Institute of Chemistry's Prof Dr Zaid Mahmood and his wife Dr Syeda Rubina Gilani, serving as associate professor at UET's chemistry department.

While a three-member inquiry committee headed by director of Public Instruction (Colleges), Punjab, Dr Jalil Tariq, was probing the plagiarism of two research articles, it has been provided another research article published by both authors in 2002 prima facie from two research articles and supplementary data published in 1999.

The committee has received an article entitled "Sunthesis and spectroscopic studies of molybdenum and tungsten tetra carbonyl compounds with Schiff base ligands" published in Pakistan Journal of Scientific Research 54(3-4): 2002 pages 72-78 by Z. Mahmood and S.R. Gilani.

The complainant alleged that this research paper was plagiarised from articles - Ayfer Mentes' "Molybdenum and tungsten(0) tetracarbonyl complexes with pyridyl amine Schiff base ligands" published in Transition Metal Chemistry 24:"1999, 77-80; and another article "Molybdenum-tetracarbonyl complexes with Schiff base ligands" published by Ayfer Mentes, John Fawcett, Raymonds D. W Kemmt and David R. Russell, in Acta Crystallographica C55:1999, 48-50 and this article's supplementary data.

The complainant has marked the papers authored by two faculty members and original articles published abroad. The comparison of article published in 2002 had identified some 39 plagiarised points. Prof Mahmood was not available for comments.

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University students demonstrate against fee hike
Taxila: Hundreds of students from the University of Wah held a protest demonstration against 40 per cent fee hike by the university here on Friday.

The angry students besieged the administration block of the university and put traffic out of gear on the Mall for over three hours.

The university has made 30 to 40 per cent increase in tuition fee, stand-up fee and other expenses for new as well as already enrolled students from September.

Carrying placards, wearing black armbands and chanting slogans against the university administration, the students marched from the academic block to the administration block at around 10am and staged a sit-in there.

They later gathered on the Mall and suspended traffic.

The students said the increase in fees started from the new academic session but the 40 per cent hike was notified for the students studying in even final semesters.

They said as it was a private sector university, its fee was already very high and the latest 40 per cent increase in the fees had made it difficult for the middle class students to continue education.

Sadia, who was leading the female protesting students, said there was always six to 10 per cent increase in fees of the university but by notifying 40 per cent hike the institution had pushed the students and their parents to the wall. She said most of the students had no option but to leave the university as they were unable to pay the high fees.

Another student, Saqib, said in no university there was such a fee hike for the already enrolled students.

Shazia Parveen said the federal and Punjab governments always claimed that they were working for promotion of education but such steps would ruin the dreams of the students to get education.

They called upon the chairman Higher Education Commission and the governor of Punjab to direct the university administration to rationalise the fee structure and withdraw the 40 per cent hike.

The students called off the strike around 1.30pm after the administration promised that their demands would be considered in a meeting of the board of governors of the university.

When contacted, Vice Chancellor Prof Maqbool Ahmed said the university was facing financial crunch after the POF administration and the HEC reduced financial support to it.

He said the university was also facing problems to meet the salary expenditure of the academic and non-academic staff and it was necessary to enhance the fee to meet the expenditure. Dawn

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