LAHORE: In an effort to strengthen and endorse the landmark initiatives aimed at promoting the mother language and other educational activities for the underprivileged children, THAAP (Trust for History, Art and Architecture) has arranged a thought-provoking talk session.
Linguistic activists, writers, academicians, architects and students attended the talk entitled “Education in Punjabi” which consisted of three parts.
The session commenced with a detailed introduction to the significant project of Meluha Punjabi University. Dr Manzur Ejaz, the creative force and brain behind the establishment of this new platform, described the basic idea and vision of the varsity. He shared that digital learning was the emerging trend all over the world and the Meluha University would strive for the promotion of education in Punjabi.
The first online Punjabi university had started holding classes on a variety of subjects in the Punjabi language with highly qualified faculty from the United States, Canada, the UK and other European countries in addition to the best scholars from Pakistan and India. He added that creation of modern knowledge was essential to secure the future of any language.Mehreen Mustafa, an architect, has designed and constructed a mobile economic school for the children of slums in Lahore. She presented the basic idea behind her dream project for the uplift of the underprivileged children in the second part of the talk.
While sharing the vision, prototype design and the characteristic features of their experiments in Lahore, she revealed that first mobile school for the slum children would become functional this month.
Anum Riaz joined her in the presentation and briefed on the work model of the slum school.
In the third part, Mr Tohid Chattha and Dr Khola Cheema of the Lyallpur Young Historians spoke about the potentials and pitfalls in online teaching. They have organised more than a hundred talks and lectures on the social media and have made a great impact with the use of new technology.
They shared the lecture series with titles of history lecture which are creating remarkable awareness about the Punjabi literature and Punjabi lovers from all over the world are actively participating in their programmes which is very encouraging for the future of the Punjabi.
Mr Imran Masood, Vice Chancellor, USA, was the chief guest of the talk and appreciated the efforts of Dr Manzur Ejaz and other speakers in their respective fields. He added that digital media had removed the borders and barriers and online teaching was very popular and workable formula around the globe and he would support the stakeholders to make the Punjabi university a success story.
Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2021
