ISLAMABAD - Hundreds of students of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) protested in front of the Parliament House throughout the day demanding the accreditation of their engineering programme with Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC). The students said the university had started B.E Telecom programme in 2000 and so far it has not been able to get accreditation from the PEC. The council has visited the campus many times and suggested to improve the standard of the department and showed concerns over the university act but the university did not updated itself according to the standards. "We can apply neither for government jobs nor for further studies because we are not considered professional engineers after spending four years and heavy fees. They have ruined our future. We are not from well off families and our families depend upon us they not only robbed 4,000 students but 4,000 families." The students informed the newsmen that Vice Chancellor Mehmood-ul-Hasan Butt had stopped further admissions in the four-year bachelor's programme in Telecom Engineering in 2006 and accelerated the efforts to get registration from the Pakistan Engineering Council. It's been two years still the PEC is not ready to recognise the department and the VC has failed to get registration. The students have voiced their concerns before the Higher Education Commission, Ministry of Education and the administration of the university but all the efforts went futile. They also regretted that they had been protesting before the parliament but the politicians did not visit them to know their grievances except Naseer Ahmad Bhutta.