PU graduation, master admissions rules | Load shedding hits academics

PU reviews rules for graduation, master admissions
Lahore, May 22: The Punjab University (PU) Admission Committee on Thursday reviewed the rules and regulations for the admission of BA/BSc and MA/MSc 2009.

Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran and Chairman Admission Committee Prof Dr Jamil Anwar jointly chaired the meeting which was also attended by deans and heads of the departments.

The meeting discussed in detail the admission schedule for the year 2009, reserved seats for students, having distinction in co-curricular activities, sports, teachers' sons, foreign students, disabled persons, students from Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas in the subject which were not being offered by their universities. The meeting was told that only three/four departments would take their own entry tests for admission at MA/MSc level.

The chair also ordered formation of selection committee to review the cases of admission on reserved seats.

The meeting unanimously decided that to express solidarity with the internally displaced people (IDPs) of Swat and Malakand, two special seat would be reserved for the displaced students.

The meting also constituted a committee to deal with the foreign students and attract more foreign students and to facilitate and guide them during their stay in Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, the vice chancellor directed the deans to ensure that under semester system all teachers of their respective faculties must show marked paper to the students for their satisfaction.

UK delegation visits PU
Lahore: A two-member delegation of the Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK, visited the Punjab University to explore the avenues of mutual cooperation in the field of education and research.

According to a press statement, the delegation headed by Miss Erica Owden, international officer of Queen's University, called on PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran in his office.

Dr Mujahid Kamran briefed Ms Owden about Department of Electrical Engineering, School of Biological Sciences and College of Information Technology. The News

PU Mehfil-i-Mushaira
Lahore: The Punjab University Oriental College's Urdu department organised "All Pakistan Mehfil-i-Mushaira" on the lawns of the college at Old Campus on Wednesday night.

Poet Shahzad Ahmad chaired the mushaira, while VC Dr Mujahid Kamran was the chief guest on the occasion.

Urdu department chairman Prof Dr Tehseen Firaqi said such a mushaira was being conducted after a hiatus of 32 years. From now onwards, the mushaira would be made a regular annual feature of the department.

Poets including Zafar Iqbal, Anwar Masood, Iftikhar Arif, Izharul Haq, Attaul Haq Qasmi, Khalid Sharif, Oriya Maqbool Jan, Tanvir Murshad, Hafeezur Rehman Ahsan, Saud Usmani, Khalid Masood, Yasmeen Hameed, Rashid Mateen, Shahnawaz Farooqi, Ajmal Siraj, Safdar Saleem Sayyal, Shahid Gul, Shaheen Abbas, Shanawar Ishaq, Imran Naqvi, Saima Kamran, Asmatullah Zahid, Moeen Nizami, Naheed Shah, Shoaib Ahmad, Tehseen Firaqi, Fakhrul Haq Noori, Muhammad Kamran, Marghoob Husain Tahir, Arifa Shahzad and Shahida Dilawar Shah presented their poetry.

PU Research Work
Lahore: A research work on Leukemia (blood cancer) by Dr Zafar of PU's zoology department has earned the Scholar-in-Training Award in (American Association for Cancer Research) AACR's 100th meeting held at Convention Centre, Denver Colorado (USA).

The research work focused on genomic alteration in Leukemia, was appreciated by the cancer research community across the globe.

According to a news release issued here on Thursday, during the meeting, US scholar Dr Margaret Foti appreciated the work.

Dr Zafar has recently joined Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital as a researcher. At PU, he was associated with the centre of excellence in Molecular Biology. Dawn

UVAS relief camp for IDPs
Lahore: The University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS), Lahore, has established a relief camp at the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology to collect donations for the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the wake of the Swat operation. According to a press statement the donations can be contributed in cash and kind, including wheat flour, rice, pulses, ghee, medicines, etc. Meanwhile, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Nawaz and all the university staff announced contributing one-day salary as donation for the rehabilitation of the IDPs.

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Outages hit academic activiites
Lahore: All the main libraries and government schools in the provincial capital are getting seriously affected by the on-going load shedding.

Reports coming from various libraries and public schools show that school- going innocent children and regular visitors of the main libraries in the city are facing seriously problems due to frequent power outages.

It is disheartening to know that the Punjab Public Library is facing greater number of power outages than the Quaid e Azam Library, though the former has greater number of books than the latter. Besides, the board of revenue and the ombudsman offices, unlike the library, had their fans and lights on most of the time.

We spoke to different children at the Central Model School and the Government Girls High School, Ichhra. They complained about the torture they had to go through due to loadshedding.

They said they went through the worst kind of torture after loadshedding in this scorching heat.

When we talked to the visitors of the Quaid e Azam Library and the Punjab Public Library, they expressed similar views. They said it was impossible to sit in the hall of the Quaid e Azam library after the lights went out. That there is no air conditioner in the main hall of library adds to their inconvenience.

The children of the public schools further complained that they could not sleep at night in their homes because of the loadshedding and they could not even sit at ease in their schools because of the same problem of power outages.

They said they were confronting a very grave situation. They could neither have a proper sleep nor study properly due to the frequent outages, affecting their performance badly, they added.

The teachers of the schools expressed the same opinion, saying they did not feel like sitting in class rooms even for a minute without the light. They said there were no other facilities like air conditioners in the public schools. So, even the only facility to keep rooms cool ie a fan can not be kept on because of outages, they said.

Quaid e Azam Library director general Imran Ghani said though the library had access to two lines, light went off for almost 4-5 times a day.

He said the situation in the Punjab Public Library was worse. He said most of the Punjab Public Library visitors were researchers and the frequent loadshedding was seriously hampering their work. When contacted, the LESCO technical general manager, Sadar ul Huda, said the libraries and the government schools were not exempted from the loadshedding and the LESCO was not directed by the government to take such initiative.

Teachers and administrators of libraries and schools emphasized the importance of exempting public schools and libraries from the load shedding.

They said the poor children of public schools felt frustrated and deprived when they observed their age fellows at private schools having all the modern facilities and generators fitted for the time of load shedding, whereas they were deprived of any such facilities. The News

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College teachers rally for demands
Lahore: The Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) on Thursday staged a mass protest rally from the Government MAO College to the Assembly Hall and staged a sit-in for about an hour.

Colleges' male and female teachers, including contract lecturers and honorary teaching assistants, earlier held a protest meeting at MAO College and demanded that the government should accept their "massively publicised demands" without any further delay. The protesters were wearing black armbands as a mark of protest.

During the protest rally and sit-in, some 10 teachers including women fainted. They were taken to hospitals where they were given first aid.

The protest caused traffic disruption on The Mall as well as all adjacent roads.

The protesters were carrying banners and placards bearing inscriptions about their longstanding demands. Dawn

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'Seminaries curriculum needs to be revised'
Lahore: Senior Educationist and Dean Faculty of Education at the Punjab University Prof Dr Hafiz Muhammad Iqbal has said that there is a need of revising curriculum of Deeni Madaris while subjects in line with modern times should also be introduced. He also called for uniformed curriculum for Deeni Madaris (religious seminaries), saying it was unfortunate that religious boards were divided on the basis of sects.

Prof Iqbal, who holds a graduation degree from a religious seminary, said religious boards should themselves ensure uniformity in curriculum without any pressure, adding there was a need of revising the curriculum keeping in view demands of modern times. He said in order to remove anarchy from the society and to ensure harmony, there was a dire need of a curriculum on which all the sects were agreed. He suggested the government to take religious scholars into confidence, adding their mistrust in the government was main hurdle to include seminaries in the mainstream educational network.

To a question, he said some good religious seminaries were offering courses which were being taught at English medium schools. He further said the government should also financially support registered seminaries, adding at present these were receiving quite meager resources from the government.

Rejecting the claim that Deeni Madaris had been offering only religious education, he said the religious schools had also been offering non-religious subjects like logics and Ilm-ul-Kalam over the years.

Prof Iqbal, who has also conducted various research studies on religious seminaries, said it was unfortunate that Deeni Madaris had been a myth in our society. "No one including government knows what their exact number is", he claimed.

To a question about the source of funding of religious seminaries, he said these institutions had been functioning on Zakat, Sadaqa and Khairat (charity) by Muslims from across the world, especially from Arab countries. He further said people preferred to donate to religious seminaries as they did not trust the government. He claimed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had been receiving funds thousands times more than religious seminaries.

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Student gets fifth chance at exam
Lahore: Justice Iqbal Hameed-ur-Rehman of the Lahore High Court on Thursday accepted a petition of a student Wajid Hafeez of Govt Technical College, Mandi Baha-ud-Din and allowed him to avail the fifth chance for second annual examination of civil diploma starting from May 27.

Petitioner counsel Akhtar Tarar submitted that the petitioner was from session 2005 and had availed himself of only four chances for annual exams. He said now the petitioner wanted to avail the fifth chance but the board was not inclined to give him the chance. He said that the board of technical education had amended its rules and now for the session of 2006 the students could avail 12 chances. He termed this rule as discriminatory as it would affect 70 students of the petitioner's college and 600 students from all over the Punjab would suffer.

He requested to declare the board policy against the petitioner as illegal and direct the board to give fifth chance to the petitioner. After hearing the counsel the court accepted the petition. The News

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