KARACHI, Oct 22: The Sindh Muslim (S.M.) Science College will be moving to a three-storey building behind the Lighthouse, said Sindh Madressahtul Islam University (SMIU) Vice Chancellor Dr Mohammed Ali Sheikh on Monday.

He was briefing to the media about the university’s history, its present status and future plans, including the issue of the college’s functioning on the university premises despite being affiliated with the University of Karachi.

“The S.M. Science College of today is the former Sindh Madressahtul Islam College founded by Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on June 21, 1943,” he said while presenting a picture taken on the occasion 69 years ago.

“Thereafter college classes were conducted at the Hassanally, Sardar and Khairpur Houses — the three hostels of the then school. Later, the college administration thought that it was better to change its name to Sindh ‘Muslim’ Science College as ‘Madressah’ meant ‘school’. But after the Sindh Madressahtul Islam was awarded the university status on Feb 16, 2012, the Sindh government was requested by it to also add the college to the university, which the college administration did not want to do, hence they were ordered to shift from the SMIU premises,” he said.

“We were even willing to give their lecturers a higher grade, grade 18, instead of the usual grade 17,” he added.

“Apart from their being here despite a bill passed in the Sindh Assembly, we also want this due to our own security concerns,” said the vice chancellor. “You see, there are three gates to the premises and two of these are under our control while one belongs to the college. We would like all three gates to come under a unified command for proper security,” he said.

“Initially the college was fine with the idea of shifting to the S.M. Arts College building, which had some 12 vacant rooms. But then we learnt that in order to facilitate them, the S.M. Arts College required Rs2 million for renovation. Now there is a three-storey girls’ school building, which only has some 20 students, where the college will be shifted. And as for the very few students of that school, they can easily be accommodated in other nearby schools,” he said.

“And anyway, if you look at the bigger picture, what is better: displacing students of a college or concentrating on giving the people of Karachi a proper university?” he asked.

About other future plans of the university, the vice chancellor said that about 60 of the shops surrounding the premises also must go.

“We want restoration of the university to its original grandeur, for which we have also hired a team of architects headed by Yasmeen Lari.

“These shops were made in 1969 and rented out. They come under the Sindh Madressah Board and initially the income generated from them was to be utilised by the school, but then the school was nationalised and it became the responsibility of the government. Meanwhile, some board members still collect rent from the shops and use that amount to run other schools somewhere else, but that money should come to us because these shops are on our land,” Dr Shaikh said.

“Some shopkeepers also claim that they took the shops on pagri. So we are working on a compensation package for them,” he said.

When he was asked as to whether the university wanted to takeover the shops to generate income from them, the VC said that they only wanted to demolish the shops that had defaced the historical SMI building in order to restore the building’s old look.

Further plans for the SMIU included an additional campus in the Education City, he said.

“We are being presented 100 acres of land. But that is one of our long-term plans; for the next 10 to 12 years,” the VC said. He also said that the SMIU syndicate was yet to be finalised.

He said the university had five departments for now, namely the faculty of media studies, headed by himself; the faculty of education, headed by Dr Anjum Bano Kazimi; the faculty of business administration, headed by Dr Fouzia Khan; the faculty of information technology, headed by Dr Safeeullah Soomro and the faculty of environmental studies, headed by Dr Seema Jilani.

The deans of the faculties also spoke about their future plans regarding the university.

About the Bachelor of Science programme of four years, it was said that, despite causing confusion about being anything inferior to a master’s degree, they would continue with it for the time being.

“The BS is considered equivalent to the Master’s, so there should be no problem. Still we may consider revising this after the syndicate’s formation,” he said.

Dr Sheikh also said that they were proud to have 15 PhD professors at the university.

“Whereas the Higher Education Commission requirement is only eight,” he said.

“The university at the moment uses funding from the Sindh government and the HEC was yet to provide grants,” he said.

He said that the university would prefer to give admissions on merit and that he was not in favour of a quota system.

“The first official SMIU batch will start from Jan 1, 2013, though there are students in our various programmes right now,” he said.

“Smaller and lesser populated cities of Pakistan have more public universities, but in Karachi there are only four government universities — the KU, the NED, the IBA and the Benazir Bhutto Shaheed University in Lyari. The Federal Urdu University comes under the federal government’s control. So the SMIU is really needed. Its location in the city centre is also significant,” he concluded.