Alumni and students at the Karachi University (KU) have joined hands to campaign against the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council’s (PMDC) tactics of pressing their alma mater to secede from its 13 affiliated medical and dental colleges since it does not have a constituent medical or dental college of its own.
The alumni and students, who had formed the action committee for ‘Karachi University Medical College,’ held a press conference on Thursday to warn that they will not let groups, with vested interests in the PMDC, destroy public-sector universities, especially the KU.
“The cartel of private medical universities is conspiring to damage the oldest university of the city by suffocating it financially and putting a bar on its progress,” said Shamoon Noushad, the convener of the action committee, who is pursuing his MPhil in Physiology. “The Sindh government, on the other hand, is failing to release and increase the funds for the university.”
The students also denounced what they termed Sindh Governor Dr Isratul Ebad Khan’s support for the cartel. They found it unreasonable that Governor Dr Khan had ordered the KU administration to immediately secede from the affiliated medical colleges. “We believe that the owners of private universities, in order to secure their vested interests, are trying to hamper the proper functioning of this public-sector university,” added Noushad.
The students also demanded the KU administration open a medical college of its own along with a 600-bed teaching hospital for the benefit of the citizens of Karachi. “Most of the medical colleges and universities in the private-sector possess minimal facilities, faculty and space but charge exorbitant fees and force donations on their students,” said Huzaifa Sarfaraz, a final-year sociology student and general-secretary of the action committee.
In contrast, she added, the KU has an established teaching faculty for medicine since 1951 as well as 20 separate departments and units for the teaching of allied sciences, which are globally deemed necessary for the establishment of a medical college.
The students said that the university, being one of the hubs for scientific and medical research, in the country also has five major research institutes. “No other university in the private sector is involved or even remotely interested in this kind of research because ambitious entrepreneurs of medical education in the private-sector have turned them into money-making enterprises,” claimed Sarfaraz. “The same entrepreneurs are trying to create a monopoly over medical education by attempting to destroy it in the public-sector. They enjoy government grants at the cost of public universities because of their political connections.”
The students appealed to all the KU alumni to help their alma mater establish an affordable medial college for the poor and meritorious students of the city.
They also urged industrialists and philanthropists, such as Abdul Sattar Edhi, to come forward for the establishment of a free 600-bed public teaching hospital at the university’s premises.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 7th, 2014.
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