Education college students look towards SC over ‘affiliation fraud’

Islamabad : Accusing the H-9 Federal College of Education's administration of an ‘affiliation fraud’, many BS Education (Honours) students of the Federal College of Education H-9 Islamabad have sought the intervention of the Supreme Court chief justice to save their time and money spent at the college from going to waste.

In a human rights petition, the students, mostly girls, insisted that they're enrolled by the public sector college in the 2014-15 BS Education (Honours) session claiming to be affiliated with the University of the Punjab.

They said the claim turned out to be false afterwards as the college showed 2016 as the year of their registration in their exam result cards despite enrolment in 2014.

The first semester’s exam was supposed to be held in March 2015.

According to the students, the college earlier promoted them to the next semesters without holding exams and only on the basis of their attendance and class performance just to collect fee and hostel dues but when they complained about that irregularity, the college director assured them that the exams would be held once the affiliation process was completed.

As the affiliation process entered a slow lane, the University of the Punjab revised the course outline of some BS Education (Honours) subjects to the misery of the unprepared applicants, who were required to take semester exams under the newly-introduced course outline. The students insisted that the affiliation fraud on part of the college made many of their colleagues drop out, while some failed due to the sudden course outline revision.

They complained that the final exam of their first semester was conducted in March 2017, while its results were announced more than a year later, July 16, 2018, to be precise. The students said they didn’t know about the college’s non-affiliation until the University of the Punjab began to remove them from the course on the pretext of failing the semester exams. They regretted that the relevant authorities neither stopped the college from making illegal enrolments nor did they inform the people through the media that the college wouldn’t be able to begin the BS Education (Honours) programme unless the process of its affiliation with the University of the Punjab was completed and as a result, many stood cheated.

The students said the University of the Punjab was bound by the law to act against the college over affiliation fraud, while the Higher Education Commission was also to blame for negligence and that they (students) couldn’t be punished for the wrongdoings of others.

They said since the Supreme Court had a jurisdiction in the matter, which was related the protection of the fundamental rights of the citizens, the petition being a pro bono public case would be taken up on humanitarian grounds to ensure that neither the college nor the University of the Punjab remove them from the BS Education (Honours) course and that they complete course without delay. When contacted, student Ifrah Sarwar complained that she got admission to the college in 2015, while the University of the Punjab held her papers of all semesters in 2018 but dropped from the college roll due to the results of first semester without giving her any chance.

“This is a sheer injustice and is tantamount to destroying my career,” she said.

Student Bushra Zahoor said her three years studies at the Education College had gone to waste due to the administration’s irresponsible conduct.

“The college administration is to blame for all this mess but unfortunately, we’ve been made to pay for it,” she said.

Student Saman said he belonged to a poor family and her jobless father helped her do the desired BS Education (Honours) at the college by borrowing money from acquaintances.

“I wanted to help out family financially after completing this course but that seems impossible now due to the fraud of the college’s administration,” she said seeking the Supreme Court’s intervention for relief.