A dream project for Urdu lovers

By J.S. Ifthekhar

HYDERABAD, MAY 3.

It was wishful thinking. A pipe dream at best. Even ardent lovers of Urdu took it with a pinch of salt. A university at national level, mainly to promote and develop the Urdu language is considered an exercise in futility. Many felt such a step would be nothing short of transporting the students into medieval times.

Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) has proved the doubting Thomases wrong. What is more, it has silenced the critics effectively by choosing to reply through work. Feasibility and ground reality are the two things the university has not lost sight of and this helped it start from the scratch.

For a national university to function from rented premises with no staff but just a Vice-Chancellor is a daunting task. Prof. Shamim Jairajpuri rose to the challenge and today the university's new campus is fast getting ready at Manikonda village in Ranga Reddy district.

How the varsity, a dream project for Urdu aficionados, surmounted the teething troubles to establish an identity of its own is a story by itself. Prof. Jairajpuri is all smiles when he talks of celebrating the foundation day on January 9 on the new premises. The conventional mode of education would commence once the university moves to its own campus.

Prof. Jairajpuri's is an unenviable position since he has not only to give shape to the new university but also spread it across the country. During the last couple of years 47 study centres and three regional centres at Patna, Delhi and Bangalore have been established. Three more regional centres are going to come up at Srinagar, Lucknow and Mumbai. Today some 10,000 students are availing themselves of the university's distance education programmes.

The university is taking care to ensure that the courses it offers are relevant to market needs. Computers and IT figure high on the agenda and so do technical and scientific courses. Effort is also on to create a strong English and Hindi base along with Urdu. "We are preparing our students for the 21st century challenges," says Prof. Jairajpuri.

The university is under tremendous pressure to recruit staff both on the academic and non-teaching sides. But Prof. Jairajpuri is in no hurry as he feels recruitment should be in tune with the work load. "In the new academic year we plan to have specialist incharge of various departments," says he.

The university has done well to learn lessons from mistakes of other varsities. It has spent a whopping Rs. 1.2 crores for raising a boundary wall all along the 200-acre campus. "I know how other universities have lost precious land," explains the Vice-Chancellor.

Not just this. A master plan is also being finalised for development of the university. This would help in systematic growth of the campus in the years to come, it was said.

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