ISLAMABAD: The Federal Ministry of Education and Professional Training on Thursday said that the abandoned hostel building of H-8 College had been converted into a fashion school.

The Islamabad campus of Pakistan Institute of Fashion Design (PIFD) Lahore in the building has been inaugurated.

This institute will offer undergraduate and graduate courses and will focus on diverse fields of fashion including fabric, dress designing, leather, furniture, shoes and gem and jewellery etc, said the ministry.

The hostel building was closed in 2008 that resulted in the state-owned premises with a capacity to accommodate 80 boarders becoming a ghost house with bushes growing around it. In the past, a substantial number of students from KP, AJK, erstwhile Fata and Balochistan stayed in the hostel.

Faculty member calls move a conspiracy against financially disadvantaged students from remote areas

Speaking to Dawn, Secretary Education Mohyuddin Ahmad Wani said the building had not been in use since 2008.

Asked why the building was not renovated for boys’ hostel, he claimed that there was no need of a hostel for the H-8 College as only local students were pursuing education there.

“Since I joined education ministry, I never ever received any single application for revival of this hostel by students and administration of H-8 college, you can cross check it from college principal as well,” he said and added that when the building remained closed for the over 15 years, no voice was raised, but when “we have set up PIFD in this ghost building, if someone is raising objections that’s his choice.” He added that only local students were pursuing their education in this college.

The secretary said nine and 10 graders of public sector schools will also get benefit from PIFD as the institute will offer short and long-term courses in fashion designing to students of public schools.

“From next academic session, we will introduce a new curriculum of fashion designing in our schools to help girl students excel in this industry as well,” he said.

Meanwhile, a faculty member of H-8 College said the hostel building had been handed over to PIFD Lahore in June last year and on Thursday its campus was inaugurated. He said education ministry and Federal Directorate of Education should have renovated the building for its use a boys’ hostel.

Another faculty member said: “This hostel remained closed since 2008 due to neglect and lack of maintenance. However, repeated requests by the college principals to the FDE were ignored. Now the hostel building has been handed over to externals by the ministry. Many former principals of IMPC H-8 consistently wrote to FDE, urging them to repair the hostel building for student use, but their appeals fell on deaf ears, he said.

He said a similar situation occurred in 2012 when the hostel building of Islamabad Model College for Boys H-9 was handed over to Pakistan Sweet Home, depriving students of affordable housing.

He highlighted the pattern of hostel closures across ICT colleges, emphasising that students from remote areas like Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir, who come to Islamabad for quality education, faced significant financial burdens due to the lack of hostel facilities.

The faculty member while criticising the authorities called the move a conspiracy against financially disadvantaged students from the remote areas.

He said instead of closing public sector hostels the government should construct new hostels as living in private hostels was highly difficult for poor students amid heavy rent.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2025