KARACHI, March 2: The 5th Hamza Wahid Memorial Lecture under the aegis of Irteqa Institute of Social Sciences with Dr Aqeela Islam as the main speaker was held at the PMA House on Tuesday.

The learned speaker, in her key-note address, surveyed the education policies introduced by different governments in the past five decades without any clear vision and fake promises, with the result that the education in present times had gone into total mess.

Dr Ismail Saad, Dean Education Faculty of Iqra University, was in the chair while Prof Anis Zaidi conducted the proceedings. Iqbal Alvi of Irteqa institute introduced the subject.

In his brief discourse, Iqbal Alvi quoted the example of the late Hamza Wahid who despite adverse circumstances gave her children the best education. The best institution of learning and character building was the family itself, Alvi said, and this contention was supported by Prof Naseer and also by the main speaker.

While paying tributes to Hamza Wahid, Prof Aqeela Islam criticized the presence of tuition centres and so-called English medium single-roomed schools in poor localities at short distances all of them minting money and deceiving the parents that their children was getting high-class education.

She quoted the examples to prove that the success stories came from government schools with low cost education, thanks to the efforts of sincere and committed teachers. Dr Islam was also critical of the class-based education system and said that the money coming as 'aid' from the donor agencies was taken back by tricky ways.

As far as the matter of discipline in schools and colleges was concerned, which appeared to be going out of hands, Dr Islam suggested that the student unions of non-political character should be revived which was necessary to create a sense of responsibility among students.

Irteqa Institute at the occasion awarded two meritorious girls-Dr Nida Wahid Basher and Bina Yasra Abbasi, both from the 'Irteqa family' to prove that all those engaged in creating awareness and enlightenment in the society were equally conscious of their responsibilities at home: Nida Wahid was awarded with 'excellence of surgery award' at Edunbra College of Medicine only recently while Yasra Abbasi for her excellence in political science at the University of Karachi.

Dr Shershah Syed made a fervent speech on the decline of education, holding the government responsible for the mess. He observed that the systems of health and education were inter linked and regretted that the government had done away with them both.

Dr Ismail Saad observed that education was linked with the society itself and thus it was not entirely the responsibility of government. In his brief paper, he recalled the services of Hamza Wahid, a "selfless and most committed person" in serving the society.