Accreditation is very important for any and every educational institute. Since the inception of Pakistan we have had some great universities and colleges which were government owned and operated, they stood out due to the excellent turnout of the students. Among such institutions stands Punjab University, which does not need ‘Accreditation’ at all. Maybe PML-N government wants to privatize universities also because there is a noise about Punjab University being ‘Accredited.’
Smaller and new universities try to accredited themselves with some UK or Australian universities to give them leverage in snapping students from the market, but why should Punjab University need this legitimizing, and who will do it? The only crime committed by these public universities is to provide high standard facilities to the masses for a very little sum which may be hurting universities that charge sky high fee fort eh same courses. The faculty, administration as well as the students are united on a staunch stance against this pro-privatization act.
The accreditation team’s first prey turned out to be the Hailey College of Commerce, Lahore, which was accredited in January against the will of the students and faculty of the college. This shows that the policy is backed by the strong writ of the government. The government must stop the accreditation policy at once. The accreditation process will only make smooth the path for privatisation of public institutions in the education sector, making these institutions change their main objective, of providing a high standard of education to the public, in an affordable manner. These institutes will only end up worrying about profit maximisation if the accreditation process continues.
TAUSIF MAHMOOD,
Lahore, March 19.