January 21, 2003	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 17, 1423

KARACHI, Jan 20: The speakers at the ceremony on Sunday night, which was held to mark the Karachi University Day, expressed their dissatisfaction over the performance of the present managers and the teachers of the varsity.

Speaker after speaker — all of them, eminent personalities — expressed their dissatisfaction over the situation prevailing in the educational institutions, specially, in the Karachi University.

They were of the view that the country couldn’t produce good quality graduates unless the teachers raised their performance to a satisfactory level.

“How can our universities produce good alumni if we don’t have people who could teach and motivate,” said Syed Sufwanullah, an MNA and the president of the Unikarians, the hosts of the event.

State Bank Governor Dr Ishrat Hussein said good teachers, not brick and mortar, make good institutions. “Harvard and Cambridge are housed in buildings that are several centuries old.

“But all of us hold each professor of theirs in awe, don’t we. This is because these people are considered to be authority in their subjects.”

Dr Hussein informed all those present that recently the State Bank conducted a test of 600 people who had applied for some 30 positions of economists. “To our utter horror only 16 applicants managed to pass the examinations. This is the quality of our graduates,” he said.

Sindh Ombudsman Justice Haziqul Khairi declared the last ten years a ‘lost decade’. “I am referring to the period in which cheating was rampant in almost all the city’s institutions, including the Karachi University,” he said.

“Principals and vice chancellors had become mere spectators when this was going on,” he said.

He recalled whenever he would secure poor marks in a subject, the teacher of that subject would give him free private tuition. “This is the kind of dedication we expected of our teachers.”

The issue of deployment of the Rangers force in the university campus was also raised quite forcefully during the ceremony.

Commenting on the issue, without mentioning the name of the force, Mr S Sufwanullah said “When I reach the gates of the university, my heart starts sinking,”

He recalled the time when he was a student in the university and told the gathering that how the then Vive-Chacellor, Dr A.B.A Haleem, once rebuked the police for entering the campus and arresting some students, following an untoward incident. Before ending his speech, as if pleading with the present vice-chancellor, he said: “Please remove this stain, this curse. The university cannot produce human beings in the present environment.”

Speaking on the occasion, the vice-chancellor of the Federal Government Urdu University, Dr Pirzada Qasim, deplored that the teachers often neglected the students, as well as, their problems.

He said the well-off people were always willing to extend financial assistance to educational institutions, provided they were convinced that the money would not be wasted.

Hulail Naqvi announced that the A.Q. Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetics would be inaugurated in the last week of March. The said institute, situated on the Karachi University campus, was being built by the Old Students Association of Karachi University, with the help of donations.

The sitting vice-chancellor of Karachi University, Prof Zafar Saeed Saify, said the menace of cheating had been dealt with by the university administration. “Barring a few odd incidents, cheating doesn’t take place. We have taken care of this problem,” he claimed.

The vice chancellor, perhaps referring to the issue of the rangers’ deployment, said: “The geography of people, who don’t keep pace with the latest developments, soon becomes history.” He was implying that rangers had become need of the times.

He announced the names of the projects which had been launched recently or for which funds had been received by the university administration.

The master of ceremony, Azhar Abbas Hashmi, recounted how the-then vice chancellor had extended the last date for submission of examination forms just because he hadn’t submitted the fee within the due date, and that the vice-chancellor also paid the fee from his own pocket.