Vulnerable state of PUGC
PUGC “Punjab University Gujranwala Campus” was established in 2005 as a satellite campus of University of Punjab Lahore.
It is the third oldest campus amongst the five University of Punjab Campuses. As per official data, almost 40,000 students have completed their education from PUGC.
In an official visit to the city on March, Chief Minister of Punjab, Usman Buzdar had announced mega projects for Gujranwala.
Establishment of “University of Gujranwala” was also part of those projects aimed at providing masses with an easy access to quality educations.
Regrettably, when it came to implementing their project ie construction of a new university, Punjab Govt has crookedly backed out of their promises and is adamant on converting the already existing PUGC into University of Gujranwala by merely changing its name instead of establishing a new University.
What a sorry state that a Party that came to power on the slogan of change is bringing about a change by changing the names of Universities contrary to constructing and providing new ones as per increasing demands of the students.
Such insane acts of Government of not building educational institutions can have disastrous impacts on educational career of students.
Against the backdrop of this unilateral decision of Punjab Government a great reaction was seen by students and civilians through their protests under the supervision of Pro Dr. Naveed Iqbal Chaudhry (Head of Department of Commerce, Assistant Professor Hafiz Imran Akram and Dr Mudassar Ghafoor, an Associate Professor against this illegal and arbitrary confiscation of PUGC by Punjab Government.
It is a sheer injustice, deception, and bigotry on part of Punjab Government, depriving a large number of students of the provision of a big university based on international standards offering a variety of educational programmes including Literature, Business, Mathematics, Science & Technology, Agriculture, History, Arts, Languages, Law, Journalism, Sociology, Commerce, and Education.
This hostile move of altering the identity of PUGC by Punjab Government is the reflection of its inattention and detestation towards the propagation of education.
It is not just the conversion, rather a blunt derision and disgrace to a city holding no fewer than 23,00,000 of population.
Nation building and progress of any country is directly linked to the provision of educational institutions to the people.
Dismally, here our Government holds no importance for education and is intransigently constricting its significance by declaring already existing PUGC for “University of Gujranwala” than establishment of a new one.
Currently, PUGC is just confined to four departments: Commerce, Business Administration, Information Technology and Law.
Moreover, the existing building of PUGC has no enough capacity to absorb more students besides those belonging to aforementioned sections.
Therefore, usurpation of this university is simply tantamount to trampling long-time demands of the youth and snatching their fundamental right to the availability of a new university which must have enough capacity to offer multiple programmes at a time.
Keeping the academic deprivations of the students into account, establishment of a separate university for the people of Gujranwala is inevitable on model of Gujrat, Faisalabad and Sargodha Universities.
Students have to go out of their city to pursue education in their respective fields; a problem that can be solved by constructing a new University instead of takng over the already existing campus.
—The writer is Gujranwala based geopolitical analyst and freelance columnist.
