Operation Clean-up

Tehmina Qureshi

 It was ten-thirty at night when I received a text from Ahsan Bhai yesterday, to bring a sponge and detergent  today.  He wanted everyone to contribute and have the annual "operation clean-up" (no pun  intended) in the department. 

For our readers who haven't seen the department, let me describe it a little for you. The department is two years old, has a nice cone shaped cap of blue glass on the top that impresses all the new comers. One enters a big atrium that has corridoors on either side, and the back door straight up front. The atrium has black couches in its remotest corners and a few benches that keep moving inside and out the back. The atrium is always a buzzing with activity and also shelters the IDPs of other departments which ironically do not allow students to sit there if they don't have classes. So everyone turns up here, at Mass Communication, to eat, get Photostats, sit, talk or smoke.

So I was telling you about the Operation Clean-up. The department had gotten especially dirty lately. Hence, Ahsan Bhai, was badgering us all to clean out the department bit by bit this whole week.  Once everyone gathered in the morning and had their fixes of the bad tea that is sold at our little canteen, sponges, buckets, detergents, brooms were brought out, and a few of us attacked the Paan, tea and shoe stains on the pillars. While some were busy scrubbing the grime off the pillars others thought of removing the cobwebs that hung above them. My friend Sidra Gufran had brought a pink feathery duster which looked really cute when she climbed her little-self onto a chair to wipe the cobwebs off, but it did only that. The cobwebs were as resilient as the students who were cleaning them, and swayed this way and that but mostly stayed in their places.

 Seeing all the ruckus that was being created and how everyone had taken over hos job, the janitor thought of bringing the water hose inside. Once he did that, he thought of spraying the walls with it to get it off the cobwebs too. To be honest we were surprised at his efficiency, but then we figured out he was probably thinking of the week's holiday that he would get once this gets done.

 The water hose was the turning point of the whole operation. The water made it expand laterally and charged everyone into washing every bit of the atrium. Walls, corners, windows, floor, stairs was hosed off by Suleman, Fahad, me, and the janitor. While Fahad and I fought for the hose, Suleman provided the sound effects to match the barrage of water coming out from it. Every lizard that came out of the corners was chased till it ran out of the department or beaten with brooms.

 The IDPs and people not from the department came in to witness this spectacle and stood right in the middle of the atrium to take our pictures. It took a couple of sprays on their shoes to make them understand that they are getting in the way of our project-of-the-year. Our friends who were content with only watching, got themselves complimentary sprays of water on their clothes as well. Our Photostat man on the other hand, watched all this in absolute terror.

After all the water was wiped off, and the confused IDPs were able to walk to the canteen again, and things normalised a bit, somebody piped up, "Aaj to bohot maza aaya! Ab agla safai din aglay mahinay!". Then we went to the famous Sufi and stuffed ourselves with food. Cleaning had tidied up our appetites too!

Your Plan-B is my Plan-A!

By Tehmina Qureshi

 I felt a surge of anger as the girl, sitting beside me in a workshop, described her saddest moment when asked by the moderator. She said that not being able to get admission in a medical college on merit. So, she came to Mass Communication instead! Journalism, which has not the remotest connection to medicine, was her second choice. It was her plan-B.

 Same is the case with about 60% of the people who come to study Mass Communication. In my batch, out of 40 people, more than 30 are girls. No offence to anyone, but approximately 25 of them did not intend to study Mass Communication at all. For many of them this was their second choice, after medicine or any other field. There is another girl who took admission and studied for a whole year. A year later she sat for the test for medicine again, and left. Apparently she wanted a place to spend her "farigh" days and she did that at the cost of someone else's place on merit for admission in Mass Communication.

In the workshop I talked about earlier, almost all fell down to social sciences after their merit fell short for medicine. Almost every girl's saddest moment was not being able to study medicine. All I wanted to do was jump from my chair and ask them why in the world didn't they try again? If they were doing it because of family pressure then shouldn't they be glad that they were saved by fate from studying something that they did  not want to for the rest of their lives?

  For these girls, journalism maybe just another subject to study to have a degree. For me it is something I want to do for the rest of my life. My plan-A, is their plan-B.

KU VC pays a surprise visit to Mass Communication

Tehmina Qureshi

September 9th, Karachi: The Vice Chancellor of Karachi University paid a surprise visit to the department of Mass Communication on Thursday, after the students of the department had complained of the unavailability of modern equipment for practical work in the department to the Governor of Sindh last week.

Prof. Dr. Peerzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui inspected the classes and the practical lab, while giving directives that the chairperson of the department and the teacher of electronic media of the final year, to meet him next morning to discuss the issue of providing modern digital cameras for the students' practical work.

Five students of Mass Communication had gone to the Governor House with 92 other students from other departments of the University of Karachi and had voiced their concerns over the unavailability of modern digital equipment, presence of armed rangers inside the university, and illegal political activities in the university. The students had also requested to be able to work with the media cell of the Governor House and to manage their communication and PR.

Related stories on:
http://thefinancialdaily.com/news/national/ku-vc-inspects-mass-comm-dept-12037.aspx
http://www.thenews.com.pk/08-10-2010/karachi/8806.htm

Volunteer education program for illiterates annnounced by Ishrat ul Ibad

By Tehmina Qureshi

Thursday, 30th September: Governor of Sindh announced the formation of a volunteer education program to be piloted by the University of Karachi in which 150 000 students would take part, and teach illiterates to read and write. He also stressed the need to initiate a volunteer program in universities for their students.

Dr. Ishrat ul Ibad was responding to questions posed by almost 100 students who had been invited to the Governor House for an interactive session with the Governor, along with the Vice Chancellor, Pro Vice Chancellor, Registrar, and faculty members of KU.  The governor also had an hour long meeting before the session with the Vice Chancellor of Karachi University.

During the question and answer session, students from Mass Communication informed the Governor about a “briefing” they had been given about not asking controversial questions. The governor however, immediately encouraged everyone to ask whatever they wanted to, but he refrained from answering them. The students questioned the governor about illegal student politics and the presence of armed rangers inside the university.

The hot topics for questions and requests to Dr. Ibad were about the lack of enough points in the University for commuting,  and illegal political activities at the campus.

In his remarks Dr. Ibad stressed the need to channelize the students’ enthusiasm which was exemplary in volunteering for the aid of flood victims and lauded the spirit shown in coming to the governor house for helping in the packing of gifts for those affected by floods.  He said that the youth are frustrated about the problems of their country but nation building needs time and patience. He said that the problems of Pakistan were more diverse than other countries of the same age like, India and China. He also remarked that out of the total votes, only 12 to 15 percent were literate votes. 

The students part of the volunteer education program will each teach five to six illiterate people to read and write. The Governor also stressed the need for volunteer work to made part of the curriculum with the incentives of 10 marks and certificates.

The Vice Chancellor, Dr. Peerzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui praised the students’ enthusiasm about volunteer work and highlighted the varsity’s efforts in raising and the aid of flood victims.

Related report on this link: http://thefinancialdaily.com/news/national/illiterates-to-get-education-vows-ebad-9411.aspx 

We are trained to copy...

By Tehmina Qureshi

Unlike intelligent nations of the world, who educate their young to think out of the box, we teach our children to do just the opposite...think inside the box. Not only do we rest at that, but we demoralise them too. When kids want to become train drivers or mountain climbers, parents tell them about a certain cousin of theirs who did his BBA, or BSc and is now abroad doing his post graduate studies. Copying what others do seems to be a national phenomenon... morning TV show hosts give out dresses exactly like theirs and a Pakistani break dancer calls himself Sonu Jackson!

This copy culture does the most harm to our students, who, when they can't reach outside the box, scram for whatever they get inside from anyone and anywhere, without knowing what it is, and use it to achieve their purpose, that is, passing exams.

When in school, students are taught by teachers who studied the same thing themselves decades ago, and have been teaching the very same thing for all their lives. Kids are told to do exactly as they are told, or their marks will be cut. They write and memorise the exact information  which they are given, and told to clone it to pass exams. Those who do dare to show a bit of  originality in their studying are rewarded with a loss of marks by the examiner, because that is not way everyone else does it. Next comes college where they don't make the same mistake again and rote learn their way out of college.

 In their formative years in school and college, the students only learn how to reproduce  information, not learn it for their own benefit. They have not been learning knowledge, but merely memorising pieces of information that they don't understand, and if they do, they consider it worthless.  Till now, they have copied information without being aware of what they are really doing.

By the time these students have entered university, their minds and thinking has been pretty much capped, and when suddenly they are told that originality is a virtue, they figure out how to copy that too. At this level copying has become a habit, and they are unable to do assignments or exams by themselves, hence they resort to copy-pasting. This in the spur of the moment often leads to plagiarism. Like most government institutions, even University of Karachi does not have any regulations for cases of plagiarism.

To an extent our education system endorses a kind of plagiarism. Students are made familiar with it at school level, and then the habit gets the better of them as they grow up. This pestilence cannot be curbed until the weeds at the roots of our education system are pulled out.

Giant lizrad terrorises Mass-com students

By Tehmina Qureshi

A "goa" entered the Department of Mass Communication earlier this week, terrorising the students and administration of the department. The Vice Chancellor said that this may be a conspiracy against students of Karachi University, by the neighbouring rival, NED.

The Varanus flavescens, commonly known as "goa" in Urdu, sneaked into the department between 12 to 1 pm, and hid beneath the stairs. A student from the department noticed it and alerted other students and the administration, after which it was thrown out by one brave student of 3rd year, Rizwan Jumman, with his bare hands.

Ahsan, the student who spotted the goa, said, "everyone was so scared, including myself. They were running here and there in frenzy. The administration was so confused, since there were no proper safety measures for such an incident." Parvez, the janitor of the department, recalls, "I ran to the scene when I heard screaming. I saw the goa  and it was getting ready to attack the students when Rizwan threw it out".  

Rizwan, the knight of the day, said, "I did what I could to save lives. Sure the danger was great, but someone had to step up." The VC is currently considering to present Rizwan with an award for his bravery.

A view of the Mass Communication department, KU

The chairperson of the department, Prof. Dr. Rafia Taj, has taken notice of the incident, condemming it, and has formed a standing committee to investigate the matters. According to the latest reports, lecturer Sadia Mehmood, Prof. Dr. Mehmood Ghaznavi, Asst. Prof. Fozia Naz-who is also the Student Advisor, are all part of the investigation committee. The Student Advisor gave a statement that, evidence is being collected and they will shortly reveal their findings. She also said that the possibility of a 'foreign hand' cannot be ruled out. "We are gathering evidence, and our findings will be made public shortly. There is a possibility that this incident was part of a conspiracy against the students of Karachi University, especially the Department of Mass Communication, to bring down its reputation", she said, concurring with Prof. Dr. Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui.

Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw(NED)  has denied any involvement in the incident. The Dean Faculty of Civil Engineering and  Architecture, Prof. Dr. Sahibzada Farooq Ahmed Rafeequi, has strongly denied the allegations on behlaf of the faculty of NED. Prof. Dr.  Saleem Memon, Dean of Faculty of Arts of KU, has suggested greater collaboration between the two varsities to get to the depth of the matter.

Half empty or half full?

By Tehmina Qureshi

There is a lot wrong with public sector universities.  There is corruption, politics, inefficient staff and teachers, dilapidated classrooms and campuses... the list could go on and on. Karachi University too, is a victim of most of these diseases, and none the less notorious for it.

Almost everyone I knew discouraged me from studying in University of Karachi when I told them what I wanted to do. They, all, listed all the above mentioned  problems trying their best to dissuade me and proving their point. Since I hadn't experienced being a student yet, all I could do was smile and say, "I know". 

 Now, having been in the middle of all the clashes between student wings of political parties, frustrating indolence of staff, braving teachers who know less than us and give marks according to how bad their day is going; believe it or not, that's the very reason that makes me love Karachi University. Absolutely not because of the things that the loop holed system enables me to get away with (just so you know, I haven't broken one rule so far), but because if these dire problems weren't there I would've been less educated in the things that really matter.

To me the university is a model for all that plagues our country as well. Weak administration, dirty politics and all... Many people who enter the university fall victim to it. And this is the very excuse they give when they, themselves, take advantage through shady deals and "influences". Our laziness in submitting the semester or exam fee on time, not studying, or just being plain lazy is actually fuelled by all of this. A typical Pakistani and Kurian complain sounds something like, "hum kia karen? Yahan ka system hi aisa hay..."

 That is what the university taught me. How to live in a place with so many things wrong with it and yet be able to come out with your integrity intact. You may give excuses about the system, or the people, but ultimately it is your actions that make your life's story, not anyone else's.

People underestimate the potential of University of Karachi... I remember I did too. But after spending almost two years in here, I have, ironically, come to respect it for just what people hate it for. All it's faults. Because they teach me how to recognise the wheat from the chaff, and they have taught me how to live in this big bad world and still be able to look myself in the eye at the end of each day. This is a lesson, I couldn't have learnt in any books, or from sages, but I learnt this studying in Karachi University.