SAHIWAL: Around 200 enrolled engineering students from mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and civil engineering departments at Comsats University, Islamabad, Sahiwal Campus, have been deprived of practical lab work for the past two years due to the majority of non-functional lab equipment.

Sources say that neither new equipment was purchased, nor existing equipment was repaired by the higher management. Approximately 50 per cent of the practical equipment in the Mechanic of Materials Lab, Engineering Mechanic Lab, ICS Engines and Power Plants Lab, and Electric Machines Lab has been dysfunctional for the last two years.

On Monday, 73 engineering students are scheduled to appear for their final practical exam on campus.

According to the university academic law calendar, students pursuing a four-year engineering degree must spend 25-35 per cent of their credit hours on practical work in the lab. However, both IC engines—Diesel and Petrol—in the Electrical Engineering Department are dysfunctional, preventing students from conducting any practical work.

Students pay Rs150,000 per semester for eight semesters to complete their degree and are not allowed to sit for final exams if their fees are unpaid. From 2022 to 2024, numerous requests for equipment maintenance and repairs were sent to the management through proper channels, but the equipment remains non-functional.

One such request, under FDS NO. 324295, has not received any response to date. A senior faculty member, speaking anonymously, informed Dawn that hundreds of students are being examined without access to practical experiment facilities due to the out-of-order lab equipment.

Despite paying full university fees, students suffer academic losses. Sources added that a formal complaint was also filed when the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat held an open court in Sahiwal on June 6. However, nothing concrete has happened for students to date.

Rana Adeel, deputy director of the CUI, Sahiwal Campus, said that only one of the scanners of the ICS engines is dysfunctional and that the university placed a work order with a Lahore-based contractor two months ago.

He added that students are conducting practical work in all three labs as per academic requirements.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2024