Marching on: ‘Terrorists cannot halt the spread of education’

GCU to observe founders day solemnly.

LAHORE: Government College University (GCU) Vice-Chancellor Muhammad Khaleequr Rahman said on Thursday that the varsity would observe its founders’ day solemnly.

He was talking to academic heads at the syndicate committee room. Rahman said the decision had been taken due to the sensitive situation in the country in the wake of the Peshawar carnage. The ceremony marking 150 years of the varsity’s establishment has also been postponed to February.

Rahman said terrorists could not halt the spread of education. He said 2014 had been a year of great academic, research and extra-curricular achievements for the university. Rahman said the GCU had organised 24 conferences last year. “This is a national record,” he said. Rahman said restoration work on the historic clock-tower was progressing. A grant from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had financed the project.

He said the roots of the GCU went back to the establishment of the Government College in 1864 in the city. Rahman said the college was initially affiliated with the Calcutta University. He said there was no university in this part of the world before the varsity’s establishment. Rahman said the college was awarded the status of a university in 2002 and renamed accordingly. He said the college was modelled on the lines of Oxbridge.

Rahman said it had been initially decided to provide all students of the institution with a Rs10 to15 annual scholarship in the formative years of the varsity. He said the annual fee in the first year of the college was Rs2. Rahman said this was deducted from the scholarships of the students.

He said the varsity’s alumni had brought laurels for the nation. These include Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Patras Bokhari, Ashfaq Ahmad, Bano Qudsia, Abdus Salam, Javed Iqbal, Khalilur Rahman Ramday, Nawaz Sharif and Raheel Sharif.  Rahman said the university would continue to keep alive its time-honoured traditions of academic excellence, research and religious tolerance.

The institution was established 151 years ago at the Dhyan Singh Haveli in the Walled City.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 2^nd, 2015.