Islamabad - The abrupt cancellation of the Ph.D admissions in Urdu subject by Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology (FUUAST) has created inconvenience for many of the aspiring students from different cities who were waiting anxiously for the test and interview call from the university after submitting admission forms.

A number of students from federal capital as well as the other cities submitted the admission forms for PhD in Urdu soon after announcement of the admissions by the University, however it decided to cancel the admission process internally without informing the students who were still waiting for the University’s response. “I visited the University and checked the status of my admission and was shocked to hear from the officials that the university had cancelled the admission process. How can they play with the future of so many students like me?” questioned Saeeda Irum, who intended to pursue PhD in Urdu and submitted her admission form.

Talking to APP, Saeeda said, “Now the given time for submitting admission forms in other universities like National University of Modern Languages (NUML) has expired while Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) and some others are not offering admissions. After cancellation of admissions by FUUAST, I stand nowhere.

The University should not have been announced the admissions, if they intend to cancel the process at the last minute”, she said. This is not a matter of concern for the university but it will waste the whole academic year of the students, she said. Another student, Amir Agha said, “I think the university offered the admissions just to grab money through selling forms and prospectuses. The university administration at least must return Rs. 1000 to the students who applied for admission, if they do not compensate them in any other way. During the last semester they did not offer the programme and this time they cancelled after the announcement which reflects their inability to handle the university matters effectively and maybe they were afraid of the new government policies.”

Urdu is the national language of the country and already only a few universities are offering PhD in this subject, some of these are charging high tuition fees for admissions which many of the students cannot afford. While others like FUAAST are playing havoc with the future of the students. Akhtar Munir who was arguing with the officials of the university said, “I came from Malakand first to buy the prospectus and admission form for my sister who wanted to apply and then again we visited the university for submission of forms.

My sister was applying for admission in this university as it was the only university which was offering Ph.D in Urdu with affordable charges but now we are very disappointed after denial of admission”, he lamented. He further said the reason that the officials have given is that the number of students already enrolled in the programme have exceeded and that they do not have sufficient faculty and other facilities to execute this specific programme. When contacted, the senior officials of the university said the internal board of the university has stopped it from enrolling students in Ph.D Urdu since the quota of the students has already been exceeded.