CHAKWAL: The administration of a government college ‘plagiarised’ its own work when asked to produce the college magazine within a month.

At one time, Government Postgraduate College Chakwal would publish its magazine Shamsheer twice a year. However, after its 2003 edition, the magazine was not published till 2014 and it was also not published in 2015.

In May 2016, the secretary Higher Education Commission Punjab directed the heads of all public colleges in the province to publish their respective magazines in a month and to send copies of them to his office. Most of the public colleges in the Chakwal district took out fresh editions of their publications but the administration of the Government Postgraduate College Chakwal came up with a novel way to circumvent the order and reproduced portions of its 2014 edition for the 2016 one.

Copies of both editions, available with Dawn, shows that the earlier edition was 311 pages and the 2016 one was 112 pages. There were 299 write ups in the 2014 edition with 206 in Urdu and the rest in English while the recent copy consists of 100 pieces of which 54 are in Urdu and 36 in English.

All the material in the 2016 edition has been lifted from the 2014 edition, except for a new picture of the principal.

Like the 2014 edition, the new magazine does not feature any Punjabi articles nor does it mention the founder of the college, Raja Sarfraz Khan, who donated 300 kanals of land and Rs100,000 for the establishment of the college in 1949. According to sources, the ‘plagiarised’ edition was printed in limited numbers and was not distributed among students of the college.

“Some 300 copies were printed when the college has 2,500 students,” a lecturer said. According to sources, students were not asked to submit articles for the magazine and the editors were also not informed before the printing. They said that students are asked to pay Rs120 a year in magazine fees and that the college administration currently has Rs550,000 in its magazine funds account.

When asked, the college principal, Prof Mohammad Aslam Kahoot, said: “We copied the old edition because we had to print the magazine within one month, according to the deadline set by the secretary”.

He said regular publishing of the magazine is difficult as it costs Rs700,000 to print an edition and that the college does not have enough funds to do so. Talking to Dawn, Deputy Director Colleges Prof Nasir Mehmood Awan criticised the college administration for its action.

“All the other colleges managed to print a magazine, except for the largest college in the district,” he said, adding that printing its own magazine was one of the basic responsibilities of a college administration.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2017