ISLAMABAD, Feb 24: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is holding a 3-day meeting to finalize the curriculum of ‘Women Studies’ being taught at women study centres in various universities at postgraduate level, says a press release.

The meeting of National Curriculum Revision Committee (NCRC) started here on Monday to finalize the suggestions/comments received from different universities regarding curriculum of the discipline, which was formulated during preliminary meetings.

The committee will finally develop a draft curriculum, which will be forwarded to all the universities for implementation. The meeting was presided over by the HEC director general (curriculum), Prof Dr Altaf Ali G. Sheikh.

Currently only five women study centres are working in public sector universities offering master’s programmes in the discipline of women studies.

The HEC plans to enhance the number of these centres in other universities of the country. For this purpose, University of Sindh, Jamshoro, is on the way to offer master’s level women studies programme.

Similarly, Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Rawalpindi, is also planning to set up a women study centre at its campus. The FJWU is offering many courses of women studies in different disciplines.

A department of women studies at Allama Iqbal Open University, Islamabad, has also been established for introducing postgraduate programmes.

The curriculum being developed by the NCRC will simultaneously be adopted by all the public sector universities of the country for postgraduate studies.

The experts who are attending the meeting include Farkhanda Aurangzaib, University of Balochistan (convenor); Mussarat Qadeem, University of Peshawar; Prof Parveen Shah, University of Sindh; Dr I. N. Hassan, Fatima Jinnah Women University; and Prof Munawar Mirza from University of the Punjab, Lahore.

Meanwhile, The HEC has approved a project to set up a centralized instrumentation centre at University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore.

The Rs38 million project was approved in a meeting of the HEC’s Departmental Development Working Party held recently in Islamabad.

The main objective of the project is to consolidate, expand and modernize the existing research and development facilities, and enhance the postgraduate training and research programmes.

The centre will be set up at the existing research centre of the UET and ultimately both the centres will be integrated to ensure maximum utilization of the resources being developed.

The project will be implemented in a period of 12 months and all the engineering and science departments will benefit from it.

The university has embarked upon ambitious research and development programmes. For this purpose, a research centre has already been established and equipment worth about Rs10 million has been purchased/ordered.