MIRPUR (AJK)
The students of Mirpur University of Science & Technology continued their protest here the second consecutive day by boycotting their classes as a protest against the non-accreditation of their department by the Pakistan Engineering Council, the public-sector regulatory authority monitoring the engineering colleges and the universities in the country including AJK.
“We have been constrained to the street agitation with one-point demand for getting accreditation of the Software Engineering Department of the MUST, Mirpur from the PEC right from the session 2009 and onwards,” said a students’ leader.
Talking to newsmen outside the MUST main campus at Allama Iqbal Road, he further called for immediate induction of at least 15 PEC-registered faculty members (Software Engineers) for teaching the students.
“Other demands include immediate establishment of four computer labs in the Software engineering Department and fulfilling all requirements within 10 days before the visit of the PEC team,” the student leader said. The student leader declared that all the students of the Software Engineering Department will continue boycott of the classes for an indefinite period till the accreditation of the department by the PEC.
“We will appear only in mid-term and terminal examination till confirmation of the SE faculty by the PEC from the very advent of the department since Session 2009 and onwards,” he said.
When contacted an official from the MUST administration, he said told this scribe on condition of anonymity that it has already been principally agreed, since long,  between the management of the university and the students of Software Engineering Department in the presence of Mirpur District Administration that the Varsity management would fulfill all requirements for registration/accreditation of the Software Engineering Department by the Pakistan Engineering Council. The varsity official, however, refused to comment more.