Islamabad’s many university hostels are over capacity

Islamabad

It is official, now. Hostels of Islamabad's many universities, both government and private ones, have more students than their capacity to hold them.

According to the Federal Education and Professional Training Ministry’s statistics seen by ‘The News’, 20 universities recognised by the Higher Education Commission currently operate in the federal capital.

A total of 808,516 students are enrolled in different courses there.

Of them, 22,051 non-locals live in the hostels of their respective universities though their accommodation capacity is 21,571.

A breakdown of the figures shows the Allama Iqbal Open University can lodge 108 students but has squeezed 165 into hostels.

Likewise, the National University of Science and Technology has 5,266 hostellers against the capacity of 5,138, the National University of Medical Sciences 800 against the capacity of 750, and the Bahria University 317 against the capacity of 311.

To the disbelieve of many, other universities have either provided hostel rooms to students in line with the capacity or have fewer hostellers.

The Quaid-i-Azam University’s hostels are operating at the full capacity of 2,773, the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology’s at 3,880 and the National University of Modern Languages’ at 499, while the Foundation University has 326 hostellers against the capacity of 328, the Institute of Space Technology 229 against the capacity of 380, International Islamic University 5,268 against the capacity of 5,644, MY University 20 against the capacity of 50, the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences 198 against the capacity of 200, the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics 80 against the capacity of 106, the Riphah International University 238 against the capacity of 262, the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Medical University 442 against the capacity of 456, and the Shifa Tameer-i-Millat University 170 against the capacity of 221.