July 13, 2002	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 2, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, July 12: An amount of Rs38 million have been allocated for a new boys hostel at Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), sources told Dawn.

The hostel will be built within the on-going financial year and will provide accommodation to over 350 students.

Presently the QAU has five hostels; four for boys and one for girls.

A teacher said even the addition of another hostel would not be adequate for the ever increasing number of boarding students.

He said over a period of time, university had started new courses but didn’t build more hostels to accommodate new entries, resulting in overcrowding of existing hostels.

Despite, gaining the status of highest seat of learning in the country, QAU does not match hostel facility even of some of the public sector universities established much later, he observed.

In both boys and girls hostels, two to three students are living in a room originally meant for one student, and in some cases four, he added.

Every year a large number of students, especially girls, are returned because of lack of hostel accommodation.

Although, the QAU has arranged accommodation for girls outside the campus but owing to the security concerns, parents are reluctant to allow their daughters to stay away from the university and therefore are forced to leave.