MULTAN, March 18th:At least 110 computers have so far been stolen from the 70 schools of Southern Punjab due to non-provision of information Technology staff and security guards.Similarly buses provided to Government College for women Multan and other colleges by the Federal as well as Provincial Governments are grounded due to non-availability of drivers. Government did not sanctioned the posts of drivers nor funds for the feul.Sources said that Hard-disks, Ram, and mother boards of high quality were also stolen from the IT laboratories with the criminal connivance of the staff. Though Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif had claimed that more than two million students in Punjab would receive computer education with the help of NComputing's ultra low-cost virtual desktops but his dream could not come true due to non-cooperation of bureaucracy and teaching staff. These laboratories are lying closed since their inauguration and not a single student could get IT education from these laboratories. These computer laboratories were set up in more than 4,000 government- secondary and higher secondary schools.Each school was furnished with a 15-seat computer lab, which is to run on three desktop PCs and 12 NComputing virtual desktops that will be connected to the PCs. In addition to reducing purchase costs, electricity usage for these labs will be 90 per cent lower than a traditional all-PC computer lab. Additional Programme Director Joudat Ayaz of the IT Labs project said that it was a sustainable and environment-friendly project with very low recurring costs. "In the overall context of the project, we are saving over Rs 1.8 billion, which is almost 36 per cent of the total project cost."As far as the electricity savings are concerned, the Punjab government would save another over Rs 10 million per month as the NComputing devices use only one watt of electricity as compared to 110 watts or more for a typical PC, he added.
MULTAN,Feb 19th: Board of Intermediate & secondary Education(BISE) Employees on friday observed token hunger strike as the negotiations between the representatives of Employees welfare Associations of Education boards and Punjab Minister for Education Shuja-ur-rehman failed They said that the minister made only verbal assurance and he was reluctant to issue written orders.Now examinations of SSC and intermediate may be delayed due to the continuous strike of board employees.Ch. Muhammad Ashraf Shad president of Welfare association and General Secretary Zafar Iqbal Khosa vowed to continue their protest till the achievement of their objective.They said that all educational boards are running in losses due to remission of exam-fee for regular students and Government should compensate all the boards so that these could run their business.They said that the board is about to go bankrupt.
MULTAN, Feb 9th: Employees of Multan Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education (BISE) observed pen down strike at the call of Federation of Punjab Boards of education and staged a demonstration to press the authorities for acceptance of their demands.The demo was led by Ch.Zahid Mehmood president and Malik Nisar Ahmed General SEcretary of the association.They said that Punjab Government had exempted the students of Government schools of examination fee but it did not compensate the education boards nor increased the medical allowance of the employees.They said that BISE would incur huge financial loss due to remission of examination fee on the regular students.
MULTAN, Feb 5th: A Class-two girl-student, Nazia (6) was tortured by her female teacher Iqbal Ara in Chowk Azam who later succumbed to torture in hospital.Police have registered a case however post mortem report will reveal the cause of death.According to details, Nazia D/O Muhammad Arif Gondal went to primary School of Chak No.154/TDA on Thursday where a teacher Iqbal Ara allegedly beat her for not learning the lesson.Resultantly her condition deteriorated and she was admitted to hospital where she died early in the morning. The parents alleged that Nazia was tortured to death by the teacher. However School Teacher Iqbal Ara categorically denied the allegation and stated that she did not even touch the girl because she was ill. Executive District Officer (Education) Abdul Shakoor also stated that he had investigated the case. The girl student was ill and she died of blood-vomitting next day in hospital. DPO Layyah Ch.Muhammad Saleem and DCO Javed Iqbal also visited the site and said," we have registered a case against the teacher on murder charge but no arrest was made because we are waitring for post mortem report.
MULTAN, Jan 12th: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has come hard on nine different public sector universities, including the , Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) Multan, and Punjab University (PU), for delay in deciding alleged cases of plagiarism.An official of BZU who attended the 21st meeting of the commission told here on Tuesday that H E C expressed extreme dismay over delay by universities in investigating the alleged cases of plagiarism according to the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) developed by the Commission.
The meeting warned the universities of strict action, maintaining no new project for the said universities would be developed while funds would also be withheld.
According to the participant, the meeting was informed that many reminders were sent on various occasions to these universities but to no avail. They further said most of the cases had been pending for around two years, making the issue quite serious.They said the cases of plagiarism allegations reported to the HEC on different occasions were forwarded to the universities concerned for investigation in the light of HEC Plagiarism Policy. “However, it has now been realized that the universities, in most of the cases, are not deciding the cases according to HEC’s SOPs, delaying the cases unnecessarily”, they added.
An official from the HEC said, in most of the cases, the universities were reluctant to constitute Plagiarism Standing Committee as required by the Commission, leading to the delay in the investigation. Giving details of the alleged cases of plagiarism and delay on part of universities, he said two different cases were forwarded to the Punjab University, separately on July 17, 2008, and August 1, 2008, besides five reminders to decide the cases but to no avail.
The official further said, in the first case involving Abdullah Yasir and co-authors, the PU had not processed the case through Plagiarism Standing Committee as per policy and conveyed that the authors had not committed plagiarism. “The case was got evaluated by the HEC from a neutral person who was of the view that plagiarism was committed”, he said, adding that the PU was reluctant to review the decision even after more than one year, despite several reminders.
The official said the second case of plagiarism allegations was against Nusrat Yasmeen and Maria Riaz, both PhD Scholars, of the PU Institute of Biochemistry & Biotechnology. In its initial inquiry report dated October 29, 2008, the PU Registrar informed that the research topics of both the scholars had been changed.
He said the names of the accused were even placed on HEC list of plagiarism cases under investigation but no further response had been received from the PU so far.
Similarly, he said, the delay in deciding the alleged cases of plagiarism was witnessed at Mehran University of Engineering & Technology (MUET) Jamshoro, Quaid-e-Awan University of Engineering & Technology (QUEST) Nawabshah, Bolan Medical College (BMC) Quetta, Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) Multan, University of Karachi, Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad, University of Peshawar and International Islamic University (IIU) Islamabad. The meeting also expressed serious concerns regarding the violation of HEC’s PhD award criteria by some institutions. It was decided that the Commission would not recognize the PhD degrees which did not fulfill the HEC quality criteria and were awarded after July 1, 2009.
The Commission issued directions to curtail the development funding to the institutions violating the quality criteria and take up with the chancellors of the universities to ensure that quality of higher education imparted in Pakistan was not compromised, and met international standards.
As per the criteria, it is necessary for the PhD dissertation to be approved by at least two eminent international experts in the relevant area and all scholars must publish a journal paper in any HEC recognized journal prior to submission of PhD thesis. In the disciplines of Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and five other disciplines in which International GRE examination is held, it is also necessary that PhD scholar have cleared the international examination prior to submission of thesis and award of degree.When contacted, HEC Executive Director Dr Sohail H Naqvi said the universities had been warned of stern action in case of further delay, adding if the universities did not constitute Plagiarism Standing Committee, the HEC Plagiarism Committee might take final decision.
The meeting warned the universities of strict action, maintaining no new project for the said universities would be developed while funds would also be withheld.
According to the participant, the meeting was informed that many reminders were sent on various occasions to these universities but to no avail. They further said most of the cases had been pending for around two years, making the issue quite serious.They said the cases of plagiarism allegations reported to the HEC on different occasions were forwarded to the universities concerned for investigation in the light of HEC Plagiarism Policy. “However, it has now been realized that the universities, in most of the cases, are not deciding the cases according to HEC’s SOPs, delaying the cases unnecessarily”, they added.
An official from the HEC said, in most of the cases, the universities were reluctant to constitute Plagiarism Standing Committee as required by the Commission, leading to the delay in the investigation. Giving details of the alleged cases of plagiarism and delay on part of universities, he said two different cases were forwarded to the Punjab University, separately on July 17, 2008, and August 1, 2008, besides five reminders to decide the cases but to no avail.
The official further said, in the first case involving Abdullah Yasir and co-authors, the PU had not processed the case through Plagiarism Standing Committee as per policy and conveyed that the authors had not committed plagiarism. “The case was got evaluated by the HEC from a neutral person who was of the view that plagiarism was committed”, he said, adding that the PU was reluctant to review the decision even after more than one year, despite several reminders.
The official said the second case of plagiarism allegations was against Nusrat Yasmeen and Maria Riaz, both PhD Scholars, of the PU Institute of Biochemistry & Biotechnology. In its initial inquiry report dated October 29, 2008, the PU Registrar informed that the research topics of both the scholars had been changed.
He said the names of the accused were even placed on HEC list of plagiarism cases under investigation but no further response had been received from the PU so far.
Similarly, he said, the delay in deciding the alleged cases of plagiarism was witnessed at Mehran University of Engineering & Technology (MUET) Jamshoro, Quaid-e-Awan University of Engineering & Technology (QUEST) Nawabshah, Bolan Medical College (BMC) Quetta, Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) Multan, University of Karachi, Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad, University of Peshawar and International Islamic University (IIU) Islamabad. The meeting also expressed serious concerns regarding the violation of HEC’s PhD award criteria by some institutions. It was decided that the Commission would not recognize the PhD degrees which did not fulfill the HEC quality criteria and were awarded after July 1, 2009.
The Commission issued directions to curtail the development funding to the institutions violating the quality criteria and take up with the chancellors of the universities to ensure that quality of higher education imparted in Pakistan was not compromised, and met international standards.
As per the criteria, it is necessary for the PhD dissertation to be approved by at least two eminent international experts in the relevant area and all scholars must publish a journal paper in any HEC recognized journal prior to submission of PhD thesis. In the disciplines of Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and five other disciplines in which International GRE examination is held, it is also necessary that PhD scholar have cleared the international examination prior to submission of thesis and award of degree.When contacted, HEC Executive Director Dr Sohail H Naqvi said the universities had been warned of stern action in case of further delay, adding if the universities did not constitute Plagiarism Standing Committee, the HEC Plagiarism Committee might take final decision.