KARACHI: 2 Petroman campuses fail to offer admissions
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Feb 2: Two Petroman's institutes in the city failed to offer admissions in BCS and BBA programmes for the new session as the federal government had not been able to iron out their long standing administrative and financial problems.
Had the bachelor degree programmes been offered for the new semester, another over 200 students could have taken admissions to the government extended facilities, under an affordable fee structure, said sources in the academic circle.
Petroman employees express the view that the government was not paying heed to their problems, particularly after shifting of their organizations from the ministry of industries and production to the information technology.
According to a calculation, there are about 350 regular and contractual staffs at 16 educational and training campuses of the Petroman throughout the country. In view of the alleged long administrative apathy and financial crunch, academic activities at the Petroman institutes had been affected for long, after their employees, including the teaching staff, refused to work.
The Petroman employees held demos and observed a pen-down strike in many parts of the country in August and September, demanding that they should be paid salaries, which had already been reduced to an amount equal only to the basic salary.
The employees maintained that the institutes were facing acute shortage of funds as the IT ministry was not giving any grant to Petroman institutes. Even the payment of basic salary had been stopped for the last eight months, they claimed.
When contacted the secretary of Karachi University's affiliation committee, Dr Suhail Barkati, told Dawn that the university had already turned down a request of Petroman regarding fresh intakes in BCS and BBA programmes as it found that they had been failing to streamline the administrative and financial affairs.
"Unless we get some assurance from the controlling authorities of these institutes it would be difficult for the university to allow them to offer fresh admissions," he said.
The two institutes of Petroman (Gulshan-i-Iqbal campus and North Nazimabad campus) would have to eliminate the faculty concerns and also ensure that students did not come on roads in future, he added.
According to a calculation, about 850 students were enrolled at three educational and training centres of Petroman in Karachi, where degree and diploma programmes were offered in information technology, business administration and other disciplines and vocations.
Following the prolonged suspension of academic activities at Petroman institutes, a good number of students quit them to join other privately managed institutions.
It is pertinent to mention here that the University of Karachi, which affiliated the Petroman North Nazimabad and Gulshan campuses, allowed on requests over 400 students' transfer to the private institutes some five months back.
Petroman employees maintained that they were relying on loans to fulfil family needs while seniors were also finding it hard in the absence of salaries. On the other hand, some insiders mentioned that there were indications from Islamabad that the science and technology ministry had in principle agreed to own and run the Petroman educational institutes.
