PESHAWAR: Despite having more enrolment as compared to the four other public sector universities of the province, the Pashto language and literature department, like the language itself, is fighting for survival at Islamia College University (ICU).
Established in 2011, the Pashto language and literature department at ICU has more enrolment -- 21 in previous class -- than that of University of Peshawar which was set up in 1962 as the latter has only eight students in the previous class. Despite that Pashto department at University of Peshawar has seven permanent teachers whereas the department at ICU has only one teacher, who is also on leave.
“The number of students at Pashto departments of Malakand and Bacha Khan universities is also less than that of ICU,” sources said.
Registrar of the university rejects rumours about possible closure of the department
There have been no appointments of permanent Pashto teachers at ICU although the number of students has increased from two to 28 in Masters and around 105 students at intermediate levels in the university since its establishment in 2011.
Abaseen Yousafzai, the permanent Pashto teacher at ICU, who is also a known poet, is said to be on leave and reason for the leave seems to be his ‘disagreement’ with Vice-chancellor Ajmal Khan on future of Pashto language and literature department.
The teacher has complaints that the vice-chancellor wants to close down the department and doing nothing to upgrade it like other departments. The vice-chancellor, when contacted to know his version, did not pick up his phone.
Pashto language was also not included in the ICU’s BS programme as according to sources some teachers termed it ‘a non-productive department’.
The ICU, which just few months ago observed its ‘centenary celebrations’ with great pomp and show, apparently had not been paying the teachers ‘engaged’ on contract or visiting to teach at the university. Some of them were just recently, on Jan 1, 2016, paid their outstanding dues.
Dr Noshad Khan, the dean of faculty of languages, admitted that there were still contract teachers at the department despite the fact Pashto had upgraded from a subject at Islamia College to a department at ICU. However, he enumerated the efforts he has been making to run the department.
“Most of the students that applied for admission in Pashto, Arabic, Urdu and Islamic Studies and Theology departments were poor and could not pay Rs58,000 annual fee so I reduced the fees and now the departments have enrolled students,” said Dr Noshad.
He confirmed that there was still just a single permanent teacher at Pashto department while two others were teaching on contract basis.
“Neither the Pashto department would close down nor we intend to do so as Pashto is our language and subject of core national interest,” said Dr Noshad.
Yet the ICU administration, which speaks of shortage of funds to hire full-time teachers, observed the centenary celebrations of its historic college, Islamia College few months ago. The university, which has funds for three-day lavish celebrations, apparently has no funds to pay for the books purchased for the Pashto department’s library.
“The Khyber Union Hall, which played key role in promotion of Pashto drama and debates, lies in the same Islamia College where the copy of ‘Khyber’ magazine, ready since 2013, is waiting for publishing because there are no funds with the ICU for the purpose,” said another source.
The Islamia College, established in 1913, having produced Pashto poets and writers like Dr Azam Azam, Qalander Momand, Said Rasul Rasa, Fazli Haq Shaida, Maulana Abdul Qadir and Abaseen Yousafzai has now grown and upgraded into a university but ironically it is short of full-time teachers to continue teaching Pashto literature and keep the language alive.
The registrar of ICU, Sareer Badshah, rejected rumours about closure of Pashto department. He said that ICU had no to close down the Pashto department.
The department may not be on the hit-list of the university administration, but the teachers have expressed concern that nothing is being done to strengthen it.
Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2016