April 08, 2007	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 19, 1428

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HYDERABAD, April 7: The students of the Centre of Excellence in Arts and Design appealed to the Higher Education Commission on Saturday to end the centre’s affiliation with the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) and make it an affiliate of Karachi, Sindh or Quaid-i-Azam University, which had their own separate departments of arts and design.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club, student leaders Anwar Ali, Ghulam Rasool, Shafique Tunio, Noor Hassan and Hussamuddin said that technically speaking the MUET, which was an engineering university, had nothing to do with arts and design.

They complained that there had not been the slightest improvement in the centre since its establishment 16 years ago as the second largest arts college of the country with the nomenclature of Federal College of Arts and Design. It was upgraded to a centre in 2004 and handed over to Mehran University, they said.

Since then the centre which was at present being run by a textile engineer had been facing acute shortage of teachers, they said and added that out of vacancies for 24 teachers the centre had appointed only three permanent teachers and was making do with contractual or visiting teachers who were mostly incompetent.

The relations between the centre’s director and teachers had been frosty and at times strained much to the disadvantage of students, who had to bear the major brunt of it, they complained.

They said that the centre was not appointing permanent teachers due to some friction between the MUET vice-chancellor and the director of the centre. Eighteen months of 2004 batch and six months of 2005 batch were wasted due to the inefficiency of administration, which was not even ready accept its responsibility, they said.

They complained that the vice-chancellor had promised to them to compensate for their lost time but nothing happened beyond verbal promises.

They said that the centre, which was publicised as the second largest in the country, did not even have an adequately equipped library, proper computer laboratory and well-equipped studios.

Earlier, the students staged a demonstration outside the press club and raised slogans seeking acceptance of their demands.