Monday, April 19, 2010

The State of Affairs at Government College University Faisalabad

GCUF is the university created in the 'revolutionary' period of general retired Pervaiz Musharaf. It is one of the govt. colleges which were converted to universities in bulk after the 'revolution' back in 2000. It was given the status of university in 2001 and since then this newly born university is in problems.
The biggest of all is the attitude of the administration and students of this university. The administration of the university always tries to create monopoly. They pull each other down to progress and they do not want to bear anyone who is 'outsider'. Here outsider means someone appointed as vice chancellor from an other city/university. The administration is too corrupt, monopolist and seeking for their own benefit from the official funds of the university. Current vice chancellor is on his designation because he has a link with the current governor of Punjab Mr. Salam Taseer, otherwise this person is not of worth to even be considered as a dean of university. Far more superior and having high impact factor officials who can run the university far better are waiting outside to be considered for this post, but the governor just wrote a line on the appointment letter of this vice chancellor 'till November 2010', so he is enjoying this job politically. There are two lobbies in the university, pro-vc and against-vc. And the pro-vc lobby is obviously dominant, always suppressing others and always seeking for their own benefit. The corruption of the administration and illegal usage of the funds let the university at a state that sometimes it does not have funds to pay for daily expenses of the departments e.g. the stationary expenses. There are four blocks in the university, 1 is funded by a former student and it was the very first constructed portion of the newly born university, a new block is constructed by govt. funds and other two are left unreconstructed, the structure is complete but for the furnishing university has not funds and so the case with government which also does not have any funds. Like other universities, it has the problem of political parties. After the rehabilitation of 'democracy' various sub-organizations of parties like PML-N and PPP started showing their power on the walls of university. Now they have groupings within themselves, they quarrel with each other, they break the rules of university but no one can stop them because of their strong political back hand. At last the teaching system of university is too week, their is a reputation of this university in the marked as a time-pass university: people say that it is the best place in Faisalabad where you may go and have a date with your partner. This negative image is being 'positivised' by banning 'couples' and even mixed groups of students sitting in university, they are fined and warned but again the ones with political back hand are exempted. But there are no serious efforts made to create a study oriented environment.
The current problem is related to study. We are always facing new marking schemes, GPA rules, passing criteria and soforth. Same happened last weak when the passing and marking criteria was changed and students showed their anger. The next day a notification was distributed telling that the previous criteria is restored but again there were hidden problems. There was a distinction made in the criteria for morning and evening (which are studying on self finance basis) students. So the rebels created violence, they lambasted the security guards and eventually police was called. After the inner violation they marched towards district council and raised slogans for the removal of current VC. The university remained close last 2 days of previous weak and the signs are still not positive. It looks that this violence would continue. A video is shared here to let you have an insight of the current situation. More can be seen here.