THIS is with reference to Prof (Dr) Sarfraz Hussain’s letter ‘Educators in the armed forces (Feb 2). He rightly mentions the role of the armed forces in the education and one can quite agree that discipline is a key aspect of military-influenced educational institutions so much so that many such institutions pride themselves on it.

I have myself studied in such a university and can vouch for the fact that rigorous punctuality and time management skills became second nature to us students.

However, more often than not the discipline is overdone and it gets quite cumbersome for civilian students to fall into military patterns of parroting yesmen and paying fines for speaking their minds.

It would be a great idea to tone down this overzealousness a little in such institutions in order to accommodate civilian students in their midst.

H. IDREES Karachi