Higher education has become an unattainable dream for hundreds of boys’ students in Hazro, where only three lecturers’ without a principal in the only boys college are catering to the needs of over 400 enrolled students, while over 800 have left due to a paucity of staff and academic facilities.

Three years ago, seven lecturers and one principal had been appointed at the college, with enrollment rising to over 1800 students, to provide better education facilities to the youth of the area.

However, four lecturers of the college got themselves transferred to their preferred colleges near their respective hometowns, using influence with the PTI government.

Later, the education department tried to keep the academic activity going by appointing ad-hoc lecturers through College Teaching Interns (CTI), but they were also shown the door after the education department ran short of funds in November 2022.

Currently, the faculty for major subjects including English, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology is not available. The principal of the college retired six months ago, and now a lecturer has been given additional responsibility to run the administrative affairs of the college.

Moreover, the college’s outer wall had also collapsed due to rain in 2021 and has not been reconstructed despite a lapse of two years, posing a serious security threat to the students.

Danish Ali, a student, said that during the last academic year, there were four lecturers in the college; besides, there were a large number of college trainee instructors, due to which a large number of students had enrolled in the college, but in November last year, the instructor’s contract ended and they left the college when the other four lecturers got transferred. As a result, a large number of students left the college because they could not afford the hefty fee of private colleges and were now helping their families with farming and other work.

Nisar Ali Khan, senior vice chairman of a local NGO, Chhach Muhafiz Committee, said that the NGO organised protest and meetings with high-ups. He said they took the issue to the Deputy Commissioner, the then special assistant to Prime Minister Malik Amin Aslam, and to the local member of the Provincial Assembly, Jahangir Khanzada, whose father’s name the degree college was built on, but all in vain.

Additional deputy commissioner (retd) Changaiz Khan termed the affairs of the college “tragic”. He said he met the then Superintending Engineer (SE) Rawalpindi Division to get the college wall reconstructed besides meeting the deputy commissioner over the paucity of staff, but all the promises proved untrue.

When asked, former special assistant to prime minister Malik Amin Aslam said that he kept issuing instructions to the provincial governments to solve the problems, but sometimes due to the lack of funds and sometimes the ban on recruitment, the problems could not be solved. Responding to a question, he said that in spite of his strong opposition, four lecturers were transferred to their native areas on humanitarian grounds.

The director of colleges Arshad Khan,when contacted,confirmed the sorry state of affairs of the college. He said that the Punjab higher education department is well aware of the suffering of the students but cannot resolve the issue due to technical reasons.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2023