Pakistan Govt to disclose its view on verdict

Campus trouble: What is behind the Panjab University's decline? 'We can wish for all kinds of things for the university, but the reality remains that its condition is steadily deteriorating in the last few years,' added Brar. One of the oldest institutes of higher education in the region, Panjab University was first established in Lahore in 1882, before it shifted to Chandigarh post-Partition in 1956 where it was designed by Pierre Jeanneret under the guidance of Le Corbusier, the famed pioneer of modern architecture. Due to the historic significance of its architecture, many buildings in the university such as the Student Centre, Gandhi Bhawan and the Fine Arts department are valued as heritage structures. However, the structures now stand faded and corroded, silent witnesses to the steadily diminishing glory of the varsity. Slipping Down the Ranks The varsity, which ranked at the first place in Times list of top universities of India up till 2014, slipped to the 20th position in 2019. A university that once boasted of highly successful alumni making a mark the world over, now finds it increasingly hard to increase student enrollment. In its revised budget for the year 2019-2020, the University's Board of Finance cut down its budget by Rs 13 crore, as the projected annual income of the varsity had slipped due to lower enrollment of students. At the last meeting of the Senate, a governing body of the varsity akin to the lower house of Parliament, members of the body proposed a plan to increase enrollment of students by devising more courses. However, other members conceded that increasing enrollment by introducing more courses is an unachievable dream, when the university can barely afford to hire more staff or build more infrastructure to cater to new courses. Far from increasing the faculty strength, most departments of PU are running at a strength less than half of the sanctioned strength of faculty members. When asked why the University does not hire more faculty to cater to the needs of its student population, Dean University Instruction (DUI), Shankarji Jha nonchalantly proclaimed that when 'there has been no hiring of staff in some departments since the 1990s, how can we even look towards hiring more?'. There are departments such as archaeology where the staff strength is as low as two against the sanctioned number of nine. Financial Crunch Perhaps the biggest challenge faced by the University is the shortage of funds and manpower. Though the staff crunch is often attributed to an order by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which allegedly does not allow for fresh recruitment of faculty, the poor infrastructure, falling quality of education and lack of resources points to a deeper malaise — chronic lack of funding. The university, which currently falls under the bracket of a state university, receives most of its funds from the Central Government. According to a concept note prepared by a few PU professors, arguing for a central status in order to relieve the burden of funding, 92 percent of the budget deficit of the University is given by the Central government. 'Then why can't we make a serious case for attaining central status? What is stopping us?' asked Gurmeet Singh, Chairperson of the Hindi Department, at a Senate meeting held on December 14. However, stakeholders allege that looking towards any source of public funding is no longer a feasible option. Brar, the professor emeritus from the Political Science Department, suggested that the university look towards American universities' models of funding, where money is sourced from a public-private partnership. However, the idea of looking towards private sources, raises questions about affordability. 'We cannot let the burden of funding fall on our students. Our university works according to the tenets of a socialist country, we should aim to provide more scholarships and financial aid to all students who need it, rather than place the burden of funding on them,' says Chamman Lal, Senator and recently elected Dean of the Faculty of Languages. Deteriorating Facilities Far from providing more scholarships to its students, the University has failed to deliver basic facilities to a fee paying student on campus. To begin with, getting hostel rooms on the campus is an unending struggle for many, who often wait for a year or longer. There are 11 hostels for boys and eight for girls, which can in all accommodate a few thousand students out of a total of over 16000 students enrolled in PU. The rest stay outside as paying guests. Furthermore, many students allege hostel rooms lie vacant but are reserved for guests who pay more for the accommodation than regular students. Others say the rooms are often occupied by alumni even years after they have graduated. 'There are so many political types who have been staying here and they have jobs and everything, but no one dares to evict them,' says a helper at one of the boys hostel. Though the university has come up with an online portal to introduce transparency in allotment, the portal can only be used by students to register their names, after which students have to go through the same grueling process that they had to when the portal did not exist. Safety and Welfare Women hostellers have relentlessly reported on how unsafe they feel inside the campus to no avail, especially in the late evening or at night. There have been series of protests by women students who have asked for a safe passage between the hostels and the library, since many have faced instances of molestation, but to no avail. A woman student, who was stalked for a whole week by a gang of boys, has now stopped going to the library altogether. In response to these incidents, authorities such as the Chief Security Officer and the Dean Student Welfare ask women students to be more careful and move in groups, stating that nothing can be done to check the actions of 'outsiders' who roam the campus at night. One such 'outsider' made news early December, by molesting a journalist who was out for a morning walk at the Botanical Garden in the university. Another young student was molested at the garden last year, which led to an investigation by the Committee Against Sexual harassment (CASH). The committee submitted its findings and suggestions but no action was taken. 'Now another such incident has occurred in the same garden, and the authorities are as lax about it as ever,' groused Ameer Sultana, convener or the CASH committee. A PU Professor, who wishes to remain anonymous, succinctly sums up the state of affairs at the varsity: 'There is just too much red tape and bureaucracy here, so change is hard to come by any time soon. We are stuck in the same old administrative roles, forming committees and asking for permissions, but no real work gets done!' Schooling for success The growing number of centrally introduced interventions are robbing teachers of the time they need to shower on students From the decision to end the non-retention policy of students up till Class 8, to the launch of a booklet on the Phoenix application, the Chandigarh administration took a number of steps to reform the school education. According to the non-retention policy, students up till Class 8 were not failed by examiners, no matter how dismal their performance. Former Education Secretary BL Sharma, decided to do away with this policy to compel both students and teachers to work towards better grades. 'This is not the way to inculcate the values of hard work and discipline in students, this will stump their academic growth,' BL Sharma had opined in an earlier interview with Newsline. Sharma also made news for conceptualizing and implementing the Phoenix application, which he introduced in schools to regulate the academic performance of every student enrolled in government schools. In the app, teachers across schools have to input information on every student's performance in accordance with prescribed learning outcomes on a monthly basis. After evaluating the performance, students are sorted into different performance grades, and those who perform poorly are given extra attention and tutoring to improve their performance. 'My goal is to make sure that each and every student from government schools performs as well if not better than their counterparts in private schools,' said Sharma, before he retired from his post as Education Secretary. Preparing for PISA Improving the performance of government school students is extremely crucial in the light of the upcoming Programme for International Students Assessment or PISA test, in which Class 8 students from Chandigarh will represent India. Preparations for the test, which will be conducted in 2021, have already began in full throttle, as the exam does not test the student's knowledge based on rote learning, but evaluates the analytical skills, knowledge application and problem solving skills. 'We give them an hour long extra class to prepare them for the test. We also make them practice problem solving with real life applications; a lot of work has been done to make sure they are well prepared,' says Ravinder Kaur, a government school principal in the city. The pressure to perform well in PISA is further compounded by the fact that India's performance was exceptionally dismal during the last time its students participated in the PISA examination. The country ranked 72nd amongst 73 participating countries, beating only students from Kyrgyzstan. It was also observed that Indian students performed quite poorly in solving mathematical problems. To amend this lapse in mathematical skills, the UT administration announced that additional chapters will be added to the mathematic syllabus of Class 6, 7 and 8. However, the Central Government's decision to introduce the option of Basic Math level examination in Class 10 board examination could dilute this effort. In Chandigarh, more than 80 percent students in government schools have opted for the basic level of math examination, instead of the usual standard- level examination. Strengthening Public Education The efforts to fortify government school education began to bear fruit this year as was evidenced by the steep jump in the aggregate pass percentage of students from 48.51 percent in 2018 to 75.27 percent in 2019. Still, most students who have the economic means or harbour the dreams for a bright future for their children scampered around the city to admit their children in private schools. The Director of School Education, Rupinderjit Singh Brar, attributed this phenomenon to an irrational belief in Indian parents that 'if one pays more for something, it is automatically supposed to be something worth paying for'. With the central government introducing a slew of programmes such as Khelo India, Constitution day, shiksha pe charcha, Swacch Bharat et al, Sukhraj Kaur, a nodal officer, says her hands are full. Exciting as the events sound, for most teachers, these only translate into more administrative work, and days spent laboriously consolidating and processing data. 'Sometimes we have too much administrative work to look into the academic progress of our students, which, at the end of the day is the most important function of a school,' rued a schoolteacher, while requesting anonymity. 'If we could just focus on their education, instead of all this other meaningless activity, maybe our students will fare better,' she signed off. DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: The Indian Expresshttp://raptorx3.uchicago.edu/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1085&extra=

https://visual.ly/users/jeffmattyhardayhappy2/portfolio She said that far-reaching reforms were being carried out in the press information department, and a new advertisement policy was being introduced to ensure transparency. ... DailyhuntDisclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by Dailyhunt. Publisher: Deccan Chroniclehttps://www.bagtheweb.com/u/rebensonim/profile