GCU turns 151

LAHOREGOVERNMENT College University (GCU), the oldest seat of higher learning in Pakistan, has turned 151-year-old. The academic travel, which had started in the Haveli of Dhian Singh in the Walled City on January 1, 1864 with just nine students and three teachers, completed its 151 years of excellence Thursday. According

By our correspondents
January 02, 2015
LAHORE
GOVERNMENT College University (GCU), the oldest seat of higher learning in Pakistan, has turned 151-year-old.
The academic travel, which had started in the Haveli of Dhian Singh in the Walled City on January 1, 1864 with just nine students and three teachers, completed its 151 years of excellence Thursday.
According to a press release, GCU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Khaleeq-ur-Rahman announced holding the Foundation Day celebrations with simplicity because of the prevailing grief in the country due to the massacre of innocent children in a terrorist attack at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The university also postponed the all scheduled festivities.
Talking to academic heads at the university’s syndicate committee room, Prof Rahman said terrorists could not deter them from their journey to enlightenment. He said a grand ceremony would be held in February 2015 to conclude the GCU sesquicentennial celebrations. He said 2014 had remained overall year of splendid academic, research and co-curricular achievements for GCU. He proudly said the university hosted 24 prestigious moots last year which was a national record.
The vice-chancellor said that in 1864, Government College, Lahore was initially affiliated with Calcutta University as there was no university in this part of the sub-continent at that time. It was raised to the status of University in 2002 and was renamed as GC University Lahore. He said the college was established on the pattern of Cambridge and Oxford and it was available in historical record that it was decided that all students of this college would be given Rs10 to Rs15 scholarship annually. In the first year, the fee of the college was Rs2 annually, which was deducted from the scholarships of the student. Keeping in view this very historical perspective of this educational institution, he had slashed the students’ fee by almost 23 percent in 2011 and didn’t increase it for the next three years.
He paid rich tribute to the efforts of Dr Leitner, the first principal of GC. The vice chancellor said they would maintain wonderful traditions of academic excellence, research, promotion of new ideas and above all, respect for others’ beliefs and views.