Meagre academic resources
By Abid Hussain Mehdi
THE education department has failed to chalk out an effective strategy for the solution to the problems of the city’s main government colleges for women.
The Government Post-Graduate College for Women, Sialkot, has more than 7,000 students on its rolls and there are only 55 teachers available to teach such a big number. Overcrowded classrooms present the picture of a public meeting.
As many as 110 posts of lecturers and professors of different subjects have been sanctioned for this college. The students and their parents have expressed grave concern over this critical situation and urged the government to make sincere efforts for overcoming the shortage of teachers.
There are only 14 teachers for more than 4,000 students of Govt Allama Iqbal College for Women, Sialkot, due to which the students are facing difficulties in getting education. According to official sources, the post of the college principal has been lying vacant since the last principal was transferred on Sept 24, 2004.
There are only 22 sanctioned posts of professors out of which six are lying vacant and the whole burden of teaching was on the shoulders of the remaining 14 teachers.
There are 28 sanctioned posts of Grade-IV employees in this college out of which 24 are lying vacant while only four employees of this grade are on duty. The college has no watchman, no gardener and no sanitary worker. The principal’s office and its adjoining rooms are in a miserable condition and it is feared that these rooms could collapse any time. To avert any untoward incident, the college management had locked the principal’s office and the rooms.
The previous Sialkot district government had established a hostel in the ground of this college on June 17, 2005 by spending Rs20 million with a sole aim of providing better residential facilities to the night scholars. But, amazingly, there is no night scholar in Govt Allama Iqbal College for Women.
The local people on a self-help basis established this college in 1966 at the congested Khadim Ali Road. Now, this hostel is being used as a ‘filth depot’, as trash heaps could be seen in almost all its rooms.
The students and parents and Citizens Welfare Council president Khwaja Abdul Rauf, have expressed grave concern over the poor condition of the college. They termed the establishment of a hostel in it a flop plan and a waste of government funds. They urged the Punjab chief minister to look into the matter.
* * * * *
THE uncontrolled erosion by River Chenab has destroyed dozens of houses of poor villagers in the far-off border villages of Khanu Bhau, Papeen, Sadarpura, Gangwal, Kaliyaal and Ghazipura.
The affected people say that more than two dozen houses have been washed away by the continuous changing of course by the Chenab. Several villages of Bajwat have also been destroyed and dozens are in the grip of erosion.
They say that the local people are totally dependent on seasonal crops and cattle, which have been destroyed by the erosion. No one has yet announced any financial compensation or relief package for their rehabilitation. This area falls in the constituency (NA-111, Sialkot II) of r National Assembly speaker Chaudhry Ameer Hussain and the constituency (PP-121, Sialkot I) of Punjab Minister for Industries Muhammad Ajmal Cheema. Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Cabinet Division,Dr Fardous Ashiq Awan also belongs to Bajwat. More than 12,000 acres of agricultural land, several villages and dozens of the houses have been washed away by the erosion during the last two years. The shrine (on the bank of River Chenab) of Hazrat Baba Chourang has also been eroded in village Papeen.
