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New college shatters many scholarship dreams
By Ikram Junaidi
ISLAMABAD: “Well, it’s settled then. Aitesham will start school with us, just as soon as you deposit Rs10,000 as admission fee, Rs15,000 in annual charges, boarding and lodging expenses and, of course, 40 per cent of the tuition fee, which comes to around Rs26,400.”
It was then that Sajid Hussain Shah realised his dream of quality education for his children may remain a distant one.
Like any other father, Shah only dreamed of getting his son the best education he could afford within his meagre means. But as he sat in the admissions office of the Chenab International Group of Colleges (CIGC) in Bhara Kahu, he realised that he'd wasted precious money, coming to Islamabad from his native Multan.
For this kind of money, he said, “I could send my son to any decent college in my own hometown.”
Shah is but one of hundreds of furious parents whose children applied for scholarships offered by Edcon Asia, an educational consortium that purports to offer subsidised education.
The 2,000 scholarships, advertised earlier this year, promised students quality education at reasonable or suitable (mouzoon) rates. But as hopeful students discovered, affordable is a subjective concept.
According to the advertisement, the scholarships had a 20 per cent quota for students from Islamabad, 15 per cent each for those from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 10 per cent each for Balochistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Around 24,000 students from all over Pakistan applied for the scholarships and 12,000 of them cleared the National Testing Service (NTS) exam. Of these, the top 2,000 scorers were called to Islamabad on May 21 for interviews.
“My son deposited Rs800 as a fee for the NTS test in Multan and bagged 73 marks. On May 15, Edcon Asia sent a letter inviting my son for an interview at the CIGC campus at Bhara Kahu,” Mr Shah told Dawn. Several other parents also criticised the college management, saying the fees were exorbitant. Many said they thought the scholarships would subsidise their children’s education in the capital city, but later discovered that it would have probably been cheaper to enroll in an institution in their own hometowns.
Chakwal-resident Safdar Shah angrily declared the whole process “a fraud”.
“I’ve been told that CIGC has just launched their Bhara Kahu campus and this would be the first academic session there,” he said.
When this reporter visited the CIGC campus at Bhara Kahu, it turned out that the college had acquired the premises of an old cadet college which was run by a retired colonel. The college opened in 1989 but closed down recently. CIGC acquired the building and are expected to begin classes there in August after the summer break.
Syed Wajahat, who is the in-charge of student affairs at the college, blamed hopeful students and their parents for not ‘reading the fine print’.
“This is not a religious seminary or a charity organisation. We have to earn a living as well. Discounts and scholarships are given to students according to the score they obtain in the NTS test, but imparting education for free is impossible,” he told Dawn.
He said Dr Jawad Riaz, who was the head of the college, was currently abroad.
Mohammad Shahzad, who has been dealing with the people on behalf of Edcon Asia and CIGC, told Dawn CIGC had 11 campuses, 10 in the twin cities and one in Chakwal, but they were all under separate managements.
“It was mentioned that full and partial scholarships will be awarded. Those who bagged over 90 points in the NTS test do not have to pay the monthly fee but we cannot waive the admission fee, annual charges and boarding and lodging fees,” he said.
“Unfortunately, most people did not bother to read the advertisement and started coming to the college from May 19. We had no choice but to cancel the interviews. SMSes were sent to their cellphones, but some people still showed up in Islamabad,” he said. “The interviews will now be held separately in Islamabad, Lahore, Sukkur, Karachi, Peshawar, Kohat and Quetta. Those who will agree to deposit the charges will be invited to Islamabad,” he said.
Edcon Asia’s chairman is retired Vice Admiral Farooq Rashid, a former naval chief and an ex-rector at Bahria University, Islamabad.
Mr Rashid told Dawn that he had met CIGC head Dr Jawad Riaz in Qatar and said he wanted financial assistance to award scholarships to their students.
“I agreed, because Edcon Asia is a newly-established consortium and we also needed projection. But we have learnt that there is an issue with the quality of education at CIGC campuses so we have been trying to contact other prominent schools to accommodate students there,” he said.
“In fact, NTS does not provide their testing service for schools, but Edcon convinced them to do so to ensure merit and transparency. It is also decided to establish a quality control cell to ensure that such a situation does not emerge in the future,” he said.
The NTS, though, maintains that they are not required to check the quality or verify the legitimacy of the educational institutions that approach them to conduct admission tests.
NTS Business Director Shakeel Akhtar told Dawn: “NTS has nothing to do with the organisations who contact us for the assessment of candidates. Even the syllabus for the test is provided by the requesting bodies.”
But this doesn’t make things any easier for Sajid Shah and his son Aitesham, whose dreams of getting a subsidised, quality education in the capital city have been shot down.
“I just thought that my son would be able to get quality education at low cost but now I think he would be better off applying to a college in our native town,” says a dejected Mr Shah.
Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2014
By Ikram Junaidi
ISLAMABAD: “Well, it’s settled then. Aitesham will start school with us, just as soon as you deposit Rs10,000 as admission fee, Rs15,000 in annual charges, boarding and lodging expenses and, of course, 40 per cent of the tuition fee, which comes to around Rs26,400.”
It was then that Sajid Hussain Shah realised his dream of quality education for his children may remain a distant one.
Like any other father, Shah only dreamed of getting his son the best education he could afford within his meagre means. But as he sat in the admissions office of the Chenab International Group of Colleges (CIGC) in Bhara Kahu, he realised that he'd wasted precious money, coming to Islamabad from his native Multan.
For this kind of money, he said, “I could send my son to any decent college in my own hometown.”
Shah is but one of hundreds of furious parents whose children applied for scholarships offered by Edcon Asia, an educational consortium that purports to offer subsidised education.
The 2,000 scholarships, advertised earlier this year, promised students quality education at reasonable or suitable (mouzoon) rates. But as hopeful students discovered, affordable is a subjective concept.
According to the advertisement, the scholarships had a 20 per cent quota for students from Islamabad, 15 per cent each for those from Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 10 per cent each for Balochistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Around 24,000 students from all over Pakistan applied for the scholarships and 12,000 of them cleared the National Testing Service (NTS) exam. Of these, the top 2,000 scorers were called to Islamabad on May 21 for interviews.
“My son deposited Rs800 as a fee for the NTS test in Multan and bagged 73 marks. On May 15, Edcon Asia sent a letter inviting my son for an interview at the CIGC campus at Bhara Kahu,” Mr Shah told Dawn. Several other parents also criticised the college management, saying the fees were exorbitant. Many said they thought the scholarships would subsidise their children’s education in the capital city, but later discovered that it would have probably been cheaper to enroll in an institution in their own hometowns.
Chakwal-resident Safdar Shah angrily declared the whole process “a fraud”.
“I’ve been told that CIGC has just launched their Bhara Kahu campus and this would be the first academic session there,” he said.
When this reporter visited the CIGC campus at Bhara Kahu, it turned out that the college had acquired the premises of an old cadet college which was run by a retired colonel. The college opened in 1989 but closed down recently. CIGC acquired the building and are expected to begin classes there in August after the summer break.
Syed Wajahat, who is the in-charge of student affairs at the college, blamed hopeful students and their parents for not ‘reading the fine print’.
“This is not a religious seminary or a charity organisation. We have to earn a living as well. Discounts and scholarships are given to students according to the score they obtain in the NTS test, but imparting education for free is impossible,” he told Dawn.
He said Dr Jawad Riaz, who was the head of the college, was currently abroad.
Mohammad Shahzad, who has been dealing with the people on behalf of Edcon Asia and CIGC, told Dawn CIGC had 11 campuses, 10 in the twin cities and one in Chakwal, but they were all under separate managements.
“It was mentioned that full and partial scholarships will be awarded. Those who bagged over 90 points in the NTS test do not have to pay the monthly fee but we cannot waive the admission fee, annual charges and boarding and lodging fees,” he said.
“Unfortunately, most people did not bother to read the advertisement and started coming to the college from May 19. We had no choice but to cancel the interviews. SMSes were sent to their cellphones, but some people still showed up in Islamabad,” he said. “The interviews will now be held separately in Islamabad, Lahore, Sukkur, Karachi, Peshawar, Kohat and Quetta. Those who will agree to deposit the charges will be invited to Islamabad,” he said.
Edcon Asia’s chairman is retired Vice Admiral Farooq Rashid, a former naval chief and an ex-rector at Bahria University, Islamabad.
Mr Rashid told Dawn that he had met CIGC head Dr Jawad Riaz in Qatar and said he wanted financial assistance to award scholarships to their students.
“I agreed, because Edcon Asia is a newly-established consortium and we also needed projection. But we have learnt that there is an issue with the quality of education at CIGC campuses so we have been trying to contact other prominent schools to accommodate students there,” he said.
“In fact, NTS does not provide their testing service for schools, but Edcon convinced them to do so to ensure merit and transparency. It is also decided to establish a quality control cell to ensure that such a situation does not emerge in the future,” he said.
The NTS, though, maintains that they are not required to check the quality or verify the legitimacy of the educational institutions that approach them to conduct admission tests.
NTS Business Director Shakeel Akhtar told Dawn: “NTS has nothing to do with the organisations who contact us for the assessment of candidates. Even the syllabus for the test is provided by the requesting bodies.”
But this doesn’t make things any easier for Sajid Shah and his son Aitesham, whose dreams of getting a subsidised, quality education in the capital city have been shot down.
“I just thought that my son would be able to get quality education at low cost but now I think he would be better off applying to a college in our native town,” says a dejected Mr Shah.
Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2014
