Medical college becomes university thru a hurried bill

MQM opposes govt holding power in university, insists the syndicate should be empowered.

KARACHI:

During yet another fiery session of the Sindh Assembly on Thursday, the house passed a bill to upgrade Sindh Medical College (SMC) in Karachi into a university.

The bill for the new institution, which will be called Jinnah Sindh Medical University, was on the agenda for several days but was not taken up given the recent tussle between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

On Thursday, the law minister sought the speaker’s permission to move a motion to withdraw Jinnah Sindh Medical University Bill 2013, which was on the agenda and included the National Institute of Child Health, Jinnah hospital and the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases. Instead, he moved another supplementary bill that excluded all the other institutions except the SMC.

This angered the MQM members, who called the legislation illegal. “You are setting a wrong precedent,” said an MQM lawmaker, while his colleagues shouted “We won’t accept this illegal bill”. The PPP lawmakers responded by shouting “Jeay Bhutto, Jeay Sindh”.



“We are not against the medical university,” said MQM parliamentary leader Syed Sardar Ahmed. “How can we make a law without going through it?” Ahmed was concerned that the draft carried major typographical errors and that the name of the university was written incorrectly. He requested the speaker defer the bill till Monday so they can go over the details. “Why are you in such a rush?” he asked. “There is no emergency. We can jointly pass the bill afterwards.”

The PPP legislators insisted, however, that the speaker put the bill for voting. “The university is being established in Karachi and the governor, who belongs to your party, promulgated the same ordinance before,” pointed out Pir Mazharul Haq. “It is now clear that I am not the stumbling block to promoting education, but you people are opposing universities,” he said, referring to MQM’s recent opposition to his statements at the Sindh University convocation.

As the arguments continued, MQM members insisted that the university syndicate be empowered to set the education policy while the PPP members were adamant that all power stays with the Sindh government. The MQM felt that this will turn the medical university into a political camp since the chief minister will be the sole authority over it.

“We are confused whether the government is establishing universities or spoiling them,” said MQM’s Faisal Subzwari. “Not only the opposition members, but I assure you, even the law minister has not read the bill,” he later told the media. Information minister Sharjeel Memon later explained, with the examples of Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and Karachi University, where students are “denied” entry even on merit.



Despite the strong opposition, the bill was passed with the support of Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid and National Peoples Party (NPP). The session was later adjourned till Monday.

SMC’s struggle

Since the federal health facilities were devolved to the provinces, the government decided in December 2010 to merge SMC and Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and grant them the status of a university. The ordinance was promulgated by the governor on June 1, 2012, through which the college was upgraded into a university.

As the members of affiliated hospitals went on strikes, the Sindh government failed to pass the university bill and its 90-day validity expired on August 30. In the meantime, around 350 students took admissions to the MBBS programme at the newly-formed university.

“The students’ concerns are genuine in the face of this unnecessary delay,” the institution’s vice-chancellor Dr Tariq Rafi told The Express Tribune then. The faculty is awaiting promotions, the university’s statutory body has yet to be formed and the future of our students is unclear, the institutions academic council secretary Prof. Dr Ghulam Ali had pointed out. Additional reporting by
Noman Ahmed

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2013.