The deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly Anthony Naveed along with the members of the National Lobbying Delegation for Minority Rights called on the Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi to felicitate him on adopting and implementing a two percent admission quota policy for the religious minorities in one of the largest universities of the country.
The NLD delegates comprised human rights activists, educationists, lawyers, journalists, and other professionals from all over Pakistan, the KU faculty members were also present during the meeting which was held at the KU VC Secretariat on Wednesday. The deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly Anthony Naveed and the NLD delegation congratulated the KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi for opening the door of opportunities to young students of different religious minorities.
During the meeting, the deputy speaker of the provincial assembly Anthony Naveed shared that the University of Karachi is the first public sector university that has adopted and implemented the admission policy for the youngsters of religious minorities. He hoped that other universities would follow the University of Karachi and implement the same policy at the earliest. According to him, the governments have announced and decided to give a five percent job quota for the religious minorities but as most of them do not have quality education, they were unable to get hands on those jobs.
I am sure that we will see the reflection of the KU policy across the country shortly, and students of religious minorities will be getting higher education in the reputed universities. The University of Karachi has taken the lead by offering admission quota to the youngsters of religious minorities. On this occasion, the NLD members briefed that the platform was established to combine efforts to resolve issues faced by minorities in Pakistan.
They mentioned that rather than staging protests or sit-ins or holding demonstrations, they prefer to lobby to achieve basic minority rights and mentioned that they feel proud that students of religious minorities would be able to enroll in one of the leading public sector universities of the country in the coming days.
The KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi informed the deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly Anthony Naveed, and the visiting delegation that the Academic Council of the University of Karachi has unanimously approved the two percent admission quota policy for the religious minorities. He said that the University of Karachi is a liberal and progressive university that has opened its doors to everyone. He added that the campus provides special funds to meritorious students to get admission to KU, besides offering many scholarships to the needy and outstanding students.
He shared that the Sindh government is the only provincial management in the country that has been providing facilities to the students at the university level and hoped that with improvement at the primary, secondary, and college level education, Sindh will progress in the education sector. The KU VC Professor Dr Khalid Iraqi observed that we need to promote the culture of interfaith harmony in the country and mentioned that the KU regularly holds seminars and conferences to boost the environment of interfaith harmony on the campus and in society.
