ISLAMABAD: Former senator and president of the human rights cell of PPP Farhatullah Babar on Monday criticised the decision of the federal government to establish Daanish University in Islamabad, saying building yet another university with the £190 million that the British government had seized from a businessman and returned to Pakistan was whimsical and flawed.

In a statement, he said what was the rationale behind spending Rs70 billion on setting up another university when the existing universities were facing a shortfall of Rs60 billion and unable to pay salaries and pensions with some of them even on the verge of closure.

He said people of Pakistan still do not know the mystery behind the £190 million transferred from the UK to Pakistan and the politics and political engineering behind it.

He said 26 million children in all provinces were out of school and the existing public-sector universities in the provinces were in financial crisis, resulting in frustration, discontent, strikes, and brain drain.

“Who is a greater and legitimate claimant to this money; a new university on one hundred acres of land in Islamabad or putting out-of-school-children into schools in all provinces, providing basic services to the tens of thousands of existing schools and rebuilding schools destroyed in floods,” he asked and added that it was the prerogative and responsibility of parliament to thoroughly discuss the matter, seek answers to the questions and make an informed decision about it.

“The failure of the parliament to take up this urgent public matter will only undermine its legitimacy as people’s representatives,” he said.

It may be noted that the federal government is all set to establish Daanish University of Emerging Sciences in sector H-16 on 100 acres.

The estimated cost of the university is around Rs25 billion and the remaining amount, according to the government plan would be spent on construction of Daanish schools in Sindh and Balochistan.

The construction work on Daanish University, according to the government, will start soon and its first section will become operational on August 14, 2026.

The government is going to start the project at a time when the country’s public sector universities, including Quaid-i-Azam University, have been facing shortage of funds and struggling to pay salaries.

For this fiscal year, Higher Education Commission had sought Rs125 billion but the government allocated Rs65 billion. The funding to higher education sector has remained stagnant since 2019.

The country ‘s school education is also facing shortage of funds, as the ministry of federal education a couple of years ago, citing financial constraints, opted to go for public-private partnership for opening schools.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2025