ISLAMABAD/Taxila/Lahore: Students at a major public sector university took to the streets on Monday and at another prestigious institution arranged a self-help campaign over their grievances regarding the administration.
At University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila, a three-hour long demonstration in support of 18 demands of protesters ended on Monday after negotiations.
Speaking to Daily Times, Tahir Nadeem Malik, the Student Affairs director at the varsity, held that ‘there were some minor demands of the students’. “The Vice Chancellor held a meeting with the protesting students and assured them that the demands will be considered.”
However, the protesting students told Daily Times that the demonstration ended only after the administration agreed to meet 16 out of 18 demands from a charter presented to it.
Sarmad Rehan, a final year student in the Mechanical Engineering department, said that the protest was the culmination of a long-drawn process for seeking the administration’s attention for resolution of their grievances. After earlier attempts of the students to seek the administration’s attention had failed, he said, they drafted a complaint and sent it to the Higher Education Commission (HEC). Before the HEC could take notice of the complaint, the vice chancellor took notice of the matter. But instead of solving the students’ issues, he kept delaying the matter until the Monday’s demonstration, Rehan said. On Monday, dozens of students gathered in front of the main administration block with placards and banners listing down their demands.
These demands included better food and healthcare facilities at boys’ hostels and an end to 10 pm curfew for hostel students; and availability of clean drinking water. Other demands concerned alleged highhanded tactics by the administration and moral policing. The students complained that the attitude of the university administration especially that of resident tutors, wardens, senior wardens, the students’ affairs director and the vice chancellor was derogatory. In the charter of demands, the protestors stated, “We are not allowed to sit in groups of more than two persons. Male and female students are not allowed to sit together on campus.”
Rehan said the university had co-education and yet students were constantly policed. “The administration takes away our university cards, imposes heavy fines and at times uses abusive language on seeing men and women sitting together or talking to each other,” he said.
The protesting students said that since the last two years, there had been no industrial tours arranged for the students. They demanded that such tours should be initiated immediately. They also asked the administration to allow informational and recreational activities on campus.
The students sought establishment of a permanent complaint cell to review progress on the demands met by the administration.
Rehan said that the two demands not met by the administration during negotiations were about an end to hostel curfews and the replacement of the senior warden. He said the administration had allowed to extend the curfew for boys hostel till 1130pm. For girls’, the curfew was extended from 330pm till dusk only. “The female students wanted to extend the curfew hours so they could access university library after classes. Currently, they were required to leave the campus for the hostels immediately after their classes,” Rehan said.
On the senior warden, he said they were told that his appointment had been made by the government and could not be revoked without a due process.
Meanwhile, a group of students at the Government College University (GCU) Lahore posted on the social media on October 26 that they took matters into their own hands after the administration ‘refused requests to arrange soaps at university washrooms’.
The Progressive Students Collective – a group of left-leaning students from different universities of Lahore – claimed that the administration was first requested by their members who were students at the GCU to arrange soaps for washrooms. “The administration’s response was that it was not placing soaps in the washrooms because they get stolen,” the post said.
It said that later the administration assured the students that since bar soaps could be stolen easily it would arrange liquid sanitisers for toilets. “It was decided that in one of the washrooms, liquid soap will be arranged and if it was not stolen, sanitisers would be fixed in other washrooms as well,” the post said.
However, it added that the administration apparently did not fulfil the promise. Then, it said, the students decided to help themselves. “They gathered at Shahab Garden and decided to put bar soaps at toilets on their own,” it said.
The social media post contained photographs of students placing soaps in different toilets and putting up notices urging others to abide by ‘the Ravian spirit’ and prove to the administration that they were not thieves.
Speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared repercussions, a student who participated in the PSC campaign said that liquid soaps were arranged for toilets across campus in the wake of the campaign.
However, GCU spokesperson Musadiq Sultan maintained that the university had arranged state-of-the-art facilities for students. He said high quality dispensers were available at all toilets. He added that if some students still had complaints they should contact the relevant personnel and immediate action would be taken to redress their grievances.
Published in Daily Times, October 31st 2017.
