No longer apolitical: College students no longer have to disown party affiliation

Students will have to maintain 75% attendance.

KARACHI: The students of Sindh colleges no longer have to file an affidavit claiming they will not have any political affiliation during their studies.

The education department’s steering committee made the announcement on Friday.

“This condition for college and university admissions was introduced by the dictator, Ziaul Haq, who wanted the young generation to stay away from political insight,” Sindh Education Minister, Pir Mazharul Haq told The Express Tribune.

Earlier, he presided over the meeting of public and private stakeholders in provincial education at NJV School. This meeting is held every year to discuss the academic calendar, the schedule of admissions and exams, etc.

“The remnants of past dictatorial regimes must be abolished as students have every right to participate in college- and university-level politics if they wish to do so,” said Haq. “We wanted to hold elections for student unions but this, unfortunately, could not happen due to legal issues at the federal level but I’m all for it.”



The meeting also recommended the Sindh chief minister relieve school and college teachers from responsibilities related to general elections, including verification of voters, housing census and their appointment as presiding officers. “The teachers’ focus should remain at their institutions and students while such extra duties affect their primary responsibility of teaching,” the minister said.

The meeting also decided to hold the steering committee meeting twice a year from 2013 so that stakeholders do not have to wait 12 months to bring up problems, he added.

Strict attendance

Students will have to keep at least 75 per cent attendance at their schools and colleges otherwise they will not be able to sit the board exams, the meeting decided. The school and college administrations will now have to submit the attendance record at their district’s board of education otherwise their forms will be rejected.

“Children might find it difficult initially as they have developed bad habits of staying away from the institutions due to deficiencies in our education system,” said Haq. “But this will improve as their examinations forms will be rejected from now on.”

Summer vacations 

In contrast to the past two years, the steering committee forwarded a unanimous decision about which months should be allocated for the summer vacations. “Representative of private schools from both the Matric and Cambridge system agreed this time to hold the vacations from June 15 till August 13 for the next three years,” in-charge of Cambridge schools’ association Jameel Yusuf told The Express Tribune.

The minister said that a demand from the civil society to hold vacations during Ramzan will be met for the next three years as the holy month will fall between the decided timeline. The vacations will revert back to the traditional June-July period after three years.

Last year, there was a massive confusion about when the vacations will begin. Some schools shut down during June and July while others announced vacations during July and August.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2013.