Contributed By:
Ms. Zunera Aziz (07TL88), Mr. Umair Mujtaba Qureshi (07TL16), Mr. Saad Kalwar (07TL21), and Mr. Fahim Umrani
There is a need for effective student representation in our educational institutes. We have a long way to go in this regard. As students in our education institutes virtually spent dormant life. It seems that their sole purpose is to get (not earn) degree and grab good job to make money. We should realize that this should be changed.
We need to establish Student Action committees which can uphold the core values of providing a platform for every student voice and help enhance the quality of student life. It should consistently be able to deliver tangible results and strive to continue to fulfill that responsibility. Student Action committee should be a party that learns from the past, acts in the present, and builds for the future.
We are glad that some students of our departments from Faculty of electrical, electronics and computer engineering, MUET have already taken initiatives in the form of “M.U.S.T Forum” which is running and flourishing as the time passes. However, to keep such committees alive, we need to institutionalize them and the first step in that direction would be to kill the typical “lack of participation” attitude from our students and faculty members. We need to devise a strategy which not only ensures the increased participation of students but also increases the usefulness of such forums/committees. Keeping this in mind, we in this article would like to introduce the readers what actions have already been taken to establish such committees and also propose future plans. But first let’s start from the scratch by introducing what are Student Action Committees (SACs)?
What are SACs?
SACs -- These committees formed by the students are a representation of those individuals who want to mould their student life in a better way. These organizations/committees work on a number of activities including student supervising, newsletter publications, seminar placements, book fairs, project fairs, fund raising, establishing blood banks and more. 'Student societies often aim to facilitate a particular activity or promote a belief system; although some (explicitly) require nothing more than that a member is a student. Some are not affiliated with a specific university and/or accept non-university students.' (Courtesy: http://www.wikipedia.org/)
Importance of SACs
The activities of a student should not only be confined to books. There are a number of activities that the student should engage himself into, which would help him and other students as well. To initiate such a committee, the first thing that the student should realize is the thing which he is best at. Either its leadership, management, problem solving, or a lot of other factors could be taken into consideration.
By establishing a student action committee, an individual is actually nourishing his personality, the environment and providing his services to other individuals in a better way. This would enhance his confidence, leadership skills, time management skills, problem solving, team management and a number of other elements.
These committees provide a platform to students to engage in a number of projects that are hard to initiate on standalone basis. For example, a student cannot initiate a blood bank all by himself, he has to engage a lot of other people in his project. This is where the need of an effective Student Action Committee arises.
MUST -- A Student Action Committee at Mehran UET!
Mehran University’s students have brought some revolutionary ideas that shape in M.U.S.T forum. MUST is a non-political body and most of its agenda and activities are concerned with the campus life of the students. The acute and primary task of M.U.S.T forum is to understand the student’s educational needs and provide them the solutions of respective subject’s problems. M.U.S.T forum is currently in its infant stages but progressing with the support of all teachers of concerned departments, efforts of its members and appreciable student’s corporation of various disciplines.
Organizational Structure of the MUST forum
M.U.S.T forum has now targeted the students of 09 & 08 batches of Electronics, Telecommunication, Bio-medical & Software engineering departments and providing its maximum services to troubleshoot the different problems of students. It will be heading throughout the MUET in near future.
M.U.S.T forum has finally laid down its foundation and managed to hold its 1st general meeting, comprising of all the members from their respective departments, in which the constitution containing the core aims and objects of the forum were put forward in front of all members for an open debate. All members were taken in confidence and finally different responsibilities were distributed amongst the nominated members who have been actively participating since the organization’s birth. The members of the M.U.S.T forum being students themselves are very well aware of the difficulties that a student encounters and have keen interest and will in solving those problems.
Aims and objectives of MUST
We are the interface between the students and the administration and we work together to identify and address concerns that affect the students directly and indirectly. It represents the interests of the students and participates in discussions and decisions that affect the student community.
- To represent and voice for the student’s of Mehran UET.
- To help student’s of MUET in developing academic skills.
- To help student’s of MUET in developing their professional skills.
- To help student’s of MUET in coping the life at campus problems.
- To organize, participate and encourage extra-curricular activities for and by the Students.
Current Projects
Following are some projects that the MUST forum has already initiated in each of its chapters:
- Committee on Learning Assistance: M.U.S.T forum has initiated a team that is dedicated in providing the learning assistance by conducting lectures in those subjects in which a student finds difficulties within the university premises in the free hours (specially for junior batches).
- InfoTech: The idea is to aware the students (specially from junior batches) about different projects & thesis that are under development. A file will be brought on the wall which will list all the projects/thesis currently being worked on and it will also suggest new final year project or mini project ideas based on latest and innovative technologies for them to consider.
- Group Discussions: M.U.S.T forum realizes to build a consensus among all the students. Keeping in view that the forum is designing a strategy to initiate a program of group discussions among all the willing students, the topic will be pasted on the student’s notice board a week before so the students willing to participate can prepare themselves to have a debate on the topic. In the similar manner, small seminars can also be organized.
2. FEECE e-Newsletter: M.U.S.T forum has dedicated a team of its volunteers which regularly releases an e-newsletter under the supervision of Sir Fahim Umrani on the 15th of every month through an online yahoo group “sar_muet”. Following the directions of Sir Fahim, steps are being taken to make the newsletter available to students through the library and through the notice boards in hard form.
Future Projects
Student's Life Committee: Many students come to MUET scare of ragging and bullying but when the left they often have tears in their eyes. But they all start loving this institute in hard way. We aim to stimulate the process of enjoying campus life as quickly as possible. The core objective of this committee is to help the student’s quickly familiarize with the campus life of MUET and make him/her part of our big family!
- Establish Blood bank where each student will be requested to provide his/ her details of Blood group and contact address so that they can be approached in the times of emergency – Already started working.
- Accommodation Committee where the volunteers/officials will accumulate the first hand information of how to apply for hostel rooms in MUET and contact details for private property lenders in Jamshoro/Hyderabad.
- Recreational Committee where the volunteers/officials will organize one-day or multi-day tours during Weekends, Mid-terms, winter or summer vacations. And also make efforts to organize Sporting events (inter-departmental or interuniversity or even at higher level). This recreational committee should NOT need any financial support and has the potential to sustain it. As throughout world (and don't forget we too are part of this world) students pay themselves for Tours and participation in Sporting Events. Of course when they will organize they will get all sorts of benefits and Discounts from University and of course the owners of touring spots.
- Event Organizing Committee where the officials will take efforts to organize Workshops/ Seminars/Conferences/Extra Classes/Quiz, Book fairs, debate or Project Competitions.
- Student’s Money Matters Committee where the members will accumulate the information for different scholarships and every student will be able to get necessary information from one point. In this regard, 2KES Scholarship Foundation supporting students financially has agreed to closely work with MUST to bring this foundation under the umbrella of Students Money Matters Committee. For further details about the foundation please visit:
http://fahimumrani.googlepages.com/2kesscholarshipfoundation
- MUET’s Women Affair Female students’ or the staff of MUET faces most problems than any body else, ranging from access to proper transport, obnoxious hooting, stalking to sexual harassment and gender discrimination. We believe that some of those problems can be resolved if we coordinate and organize. Keeping this in mind MUST forum has decided to form a committee exclusively for the Women at MUET. We also hope that the female staff teaching and otherwise will also honor us by becoming part of this committee.
We also intend to engage closely with Student Welfare department and MUET’s Sport department to work together for the welfare of Students. We are confident in hoping that seeing our passion and determination the officials of SWD and Sports section will encourage and cooperate with us in best possible manner.
MUST forum is now being officially registered by the cooperation of Chairman ES Sir Bhawani Shankar Chowdhry. For that we are ever grateful to him. We, as representative of the MUST forum, would also like to thank our Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Rajput for considering our request to legalize this forum. We would also like to request the higher authorities to stretch out their hands for their essential cooperation and to help us so that we can extend this forum to other departments as well and cover the whole university.
We would like to end this article thanking you for reading and with the following quote “Self improvement can be achieved but not with a quick fix. It is long ardous journey of personal experiences and discoveries – Lisa Simpson – The Simpsons”
