Islamabad F-7/2 women university plan put in cold storage

Islamabad: Ostensibly, the upgrading of the Islamabad Model College for Girls, F-7/2, to the federal capital’s first women-only university in public sector is no more a government priority as the plan has been caught in bureaucratic red tape for four and a half years.

First, it was the Capital Administration and Development Division that showed lackadaisical approach to executing the initiative despite the availability of funds and later, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, which was tasked with overseeing the project after the CADD’s abolition last year, too acted indifferently.

The last PML-N government had announced in early 2014 the turning of the premier F-7/2 IMCG into a women’s university as the city’s almost all universities offered mixed-gender education ignoring many girls from conservative families, who were interested in separate education only. There followed the preparation of the Rs998.436 million upgrade plan’s PC-I, which secured the Central Development Working Party’s mandatory approval in November 2014 with three years period being set for its successful execution. The cost was meant for civil work, office automation and information and communication technology facilities, lab equipment, furniture and fixture, operational transport, books and library materials, contingencies, and hiring of and payments to staff.

As the proposed university required a charter, an Act of Parliament to incorporate a university, for functioning, the Higher Education Commission drafted one and sent it to the then CADD in September 2015 through the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training. The Law and Justice Division vetted the charter two years later i.e. November 2017 to be exact that was placed before the Cabinet Committee for Disposal of Legislative Cases (CCLC) in March next year.