PESHAWAR: The administration of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University (SBBU), Sheringal, in Upper Dir has decided to close down its campus in Booni, Chitral, as it couldn’t be recognised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) during the last four years.

Sources in the university’s administration said that after closure of the Booni campus the administration would shift the enrolled students to its campus in Chitral city. In Booni campus, the varsity was running four departments, including English, political science, zoology and education, since 2012.

In view of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s directives to close down all the unrecognised campuses in the country, the HEC has issued letters to all the universities about compliance of the directives. In this regard, the Booni campus administration has stopped enrolling new students.

The SBBU has established three campuses in Wari Upper Dir, Chitral city and Booni, but none of them could get the HEC recognition so far which speaks volumes for the inefficiency of the university, sources said.

The students told Dawn that they had been protesting against the closure of their campus for the last three weeks on the premises of the campus. A female student said that the students should not be punished for the failure of the university administration to get its campuses recognised from the HEC.

“We will continue our protest come what may,” she said. The students had taken admission to the Booni campus and not Chitral campus, and both campuses are about 100 kilometers away from each other and it takes five hours to reach Chitral from Booni, she said.

“It is injustice with us,” she said. Many female students of the Booni campus have children so how they will continue their education while living in hostels along with their children in Chitral city, she asked.

She said that there were many students who had been teaching in the government schools in the morning and taking evening classes of MEd and BEd in the Booni campus. She said that the people of Chitral were very poor and hardly afforded education of their daughters even in their native town of Booni. She said that they would be unable to afford the hostel and other expenses in Chitral campus.

The girl student said that the teachers had been pressurising the students to call off their protest otherwise they would be failed in the examinations. She demanded of the vice-chancellor to let them complete their education in Booni.

When contacted for his comments, Registrar SBBU, Sheringal, Bacha Hussain said that the Booni campus was not fulfilling the criteria of HEC for recognition. He said that the 120 students enrolled in the campus would be shifted to the SBBU campus in Chitral city.

He said that each department required a professor, two associate professors and three assistant professors, which were not available for the campus. He added that the government couldn’t provide land for the establishment of campus as it was set up in a rented building.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2016