Departments' Merger Leaves Beaconhouse National University Students In Limbo

Lahore, April 01: A horde of students from the Beaconhouse National University (BNU) – mostly from the department of School of Liberal Arts (SLA) – protested on Wednesday against the administration's decision to merge their department with another department – the School of Social Sciences (SSS) – and the "unceremonious" termination of their dean, Naveed Shahzad.


Gathered in the campus courtyard, the students were holding placards and posters and shouting slogans against the Board of Governors' decision to merge the departments. Some students also protested outside the campus and were not willing to end it despite security personnel stopping them.

A student from the SLA said that they started protesting as soon as they got news of the merger. He said the administration had also terminated their Dean Naveed Shahzad and decided to hand over SLA to another dean who had nothing to do with their curricula.

Incompetence: He said if the administration did want to merge SLA with another department, it could have done it with the School of Media and Communication, which was more relevant to their programme. He said a look at the profiles of SSS faculty members would prove that none of them were competent enough to teach the SLA syllabi. He also said there were three batches currently enrolled at SLA and they should be allowed to continue their programmes under the current rules, adding the merger should be effective for students who enrol for the new semester. Another SLA student said they got admission to the university only to be taught from the SLA faculty mentioned in the university prospectus and not from people who had nothing to do with their courses. She said a prospectus is a "contract" between the students and the university and should not be violated. She said she and her fellow students were satisfied with their dean and would not accept any decisions made without taking the students into confidence.

Demands: She said the students had been invited by the BNU Vice Chancellor Sartaj Aziz today (Thursday) where they will present a charter of demands, but she said they were committed to not accepting the decision. She said they would protest across the city if the administration did not withdraw its decision. Criticising the administration, other female students said they were not fool enough to allow the merger of SLA and SSS and neither did their parents want it.

Results: One of the students said the courses offered at SLA focused more towards practical and technical studies and were not concerned with SSS. She said SLA was one of the most popular departments of BNU and its faculty – under the leadership of Naveed Shahzad – was yielding desired results.

Confidence: A senior BNU faculty member said that students, faculty members and parents had not been taken into confidence over the decision, while they were equal stakeholders. He said there were some legal complications in the decision and the students' protest against the merger was justified.

Centralisation: However, Sartaj Aziz said that they would merge SSS with SLA, adding that Social Sciences, Law and Humanities were merged at LUMS as well and had not affected their academic matters. He said they were centralising administrative affairs and would merge more departments in the future. He said the notion that the film and TV department was being sidelined was totally false, adding that both SSS and SLA would be headed by separate members but would work under one dean.

New dean: He said the merger would not create any problems for the administration, which was competent enough to handle all the students together. He said Dr Hafeez Pasha would head the combined faculty, while they were not terminating Naveed Shahzad but promoting her.

However, sources said that the merger of SSS and SLA would have a significant impact on the students' futures, whereby if the students of TV, film and theatre received a degree in social sciences, it would be totally irrelevant to their field of specialisation.

Separately, academic circles are abuzz with the view that the merger of SLA into SSS is not possible since BNU holds a provincial charter – under which a university needs to have a minimum of six departments while the current merger and any future ones would reduce the number of departments at BNU to four. Academicians are of the view that a university holding a provincial charter does not need the centralising that BNU is going for.

8 VC says merger will centralise administrative affairs, more depts will be merged soon; Dr Hafeez Pasha to head combined faculty, Naveed Shahzad being promoted. Daily times