RAWALPINDI, July 10: Three degree colleges in the city will soon be privatized, Dawn has learnt.

The colleges to be handed over to their private owners are Government Gordon College, Government Hashmat Ali College and Government Viqarunisa College for Women. According to sources, the summary to this effect has been approved by the Punjab governor.

There is also a proposal of turning Government Asghar Mall College or Government Postgraduate College for Women, Satellite Town into a university, sources said. They said as many as 78 colleges throughout the Punjab had been selected for privatization. These colleges were nationalized in 1972. Apart from this, about 53 colleges have also been proposed for autonomy, they said.

On the other hand, the teachers’ union leaders have shown severe reaction over the government’s decision and threatened en masse resignation if the decision was not taken back. “We won’t work under any private management,” they said.

At a teachers’ gathering, the president of the Punjab Professors and Lecturers , Mohammad Ilyas Qureshi, criticized the decision of privatizing the colleges. He termed the decision anti-students and anti-teachers.

The government is following the IMF’s agenda, according to which the third world countries are being deprived of higher education, he said.

Mr Qureshi said there were only four colleges for boys in Rawalpindi that were already running short of the required number of seats, and in case the two colleges were privatized, most of the students would be deprived of higher education. These colleges, he further said, would make an enormous raise in their fees which would be beyond the reach of even the middle class, not to talk of the lower class.