Students in limbo as FDE does away with BS programme at H-9 college

Islamabad:The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) has discontinued the Bachelor of Science (BS) programme in Islamic Studies at the Islamabad Model College for Boys (IMCB), H-9 leaving 12 students in limbo.

The college regulator's sudden move that comes under the pretext that enrolment on the four-year degree course is insufficient has sparked student unrest amid learning loss fears and rights complaints.

In a formal communication, the FDE director (academics) directed the principal of the H-9 IMCB to transfer nine female students enrolled in the BS Islamic Studies programme to the Islamabad Model College for Girls, I-8/3 for further learning.

Strangely, the I-8/3 college does not offer any BS programmes at the moment. Not only is uncertainty hanging over the future of these girls but their three male colleagues, too, are perturbed by the FDE's H-9 IMCB letter as it is silent about where they're to attend classes of the BS programme in future.

“We [12 students] were enrolled in a four-year BS programme in Islamic Studies but now, we're being forced, into the two-year Associate Degree Programme against our will as no other college in the city offers the BS course,” a student told 'The News'.

With the semester going, the FDE, which oversees government schools and colleges in Islamabad Capital Territory, has come in for criticism from the teachers, too, over "disruptive policies," including the axing of the H-9 IMCB's BS programme.

They insist that the move, which the FDE has made without taking principals on board, not only violates the "right" of students to the education of choice but will cause learning losses in them as well.

The teachers also questioned its timing saying the BS programme in Islamic Studies at the college is done away with when classes are under way. "This unilateral and untimely decision will have a detrimental impact on the students' academic prog­ress," a teacher said.