October 04, 2008	Saturday	Shawwal 04, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 3: Utter confusion prevailed among students of degree colleges about the reopening of the institutions after Eid holidays as the University of Karachi has failed to mention in its holiday circular whether it applies to all its affiliated colleges or concerns only to the KU faculties.

According to sources, all government schools and the intermediate and degree colleges will reopen on Saturday after the Eid holidays, though most private schools and the University of Karachi will reopen on Monday.

When the KU registrar, Prof Raees Alvi, was contacted to know about the official reopening of the degree colleges, he said that since there was no mention of degree colleges in the KU Eid holidays circular, the degree colleges should re-open on Saturday in accordance with the provincial government’s gazette notification, which had announced holidays from October 1 to 3.

Meanwhile, many college teachers are of the view that since degree colleges of the city previously used to observe holidays along with the University of Karachi, especially on such occasions, confusion would prevail among students and teachers and if the colleges were be reopened on Saturday, their attendance would remain thin.

“Most college teachers, especially those belonging to the interior of Sindh who have proceeded to their hometowns to celebrate Eidul Fitr with their family members, may not be able to turn up on Saturday assuming that degree colleges will also re-open along with the University of Karachi on Monday as it is a decades-long practice,” they argued.

A leader of the Sindh Professors and Lecturers’ Association, Prof Iftikhar Azmi, said that such things showed that there was a lack of coordination between the provincial education department and the University of Karachi.

Admissions

Sources in the admission committee of the Centralized Admission Policy (CAP) said on Friday that the new academic session of the Commerce faculty would begin on Saturday, when male and female students would attend their first classes of Class-XI.

The placement lists pertaining to first year Commerce students, were issued on Sept 16 and 18.

Meanwhile, a member of the CAP admission committee said on Friday that though the process of admission to first year classes in the city’s colleges had ended on Sept 23 with the issuance of the last placement list pertaining to the Humanities group (female), all claim centres set up to rectify technical errors would continue to function till Oct 8.

The centres have been tasked with removing the errors that might have cropped up in the process of computerised admission procedures.

He said that the number of these centres after Oct 3 would be reduced to two. The two centres, he added, would function at the Govt Adamjee Science College and the Govt Women College, Nazimabad for a week.