Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Syed Amin-Ul-Haque said on Monday that if Orangi Town developed through higher education, the lower-income neighborhood would also develop the entire city and the province.
Inaugurating the Virtual University of Pakistan’s Orangi Town campus, Haque, who was elected a member of the National Assembly in the 2018 general election from Orangi Town, said it was the first government university campus in one of the world’s largest informal settlements.
He said he had requested Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab, who also attended the inauguration ceremony, to provide a building for the Virtual University, “and Wahab complied with our request on an emergency basis”.
He also urged Wahab to hand over the ruined schools of Orangi to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), which would turn them into state-of-the-art schools by providing the required funds.
The federal minister also congratulated the Virtual University and the people of Karachi on establishment of the campus.
“The campus will bring revolutionary changes to the life of the residents of Orangi Town through world-class education facilities, and master’s degrees in five different fields will be awarded at the varsity’s campus.”
Haque said the MQM-P had promised the residents of Orangi Town that they would not have to go abroad for higher education. “Hopefully, the people of Orangi will eat less bread, but now they will definitely give higher education to their children.”
The minister said providing basic amenities like clean drinking water and road construction for not only Orangi Town, but even for the entire city was the mission and purpose of the MQM-P.
Wahab said Haque had the vision to provide higher education in Orangi Town, and as a result the management of Virtual University had given the gift of education to the people of the area. “The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), seeing the efforts of Haque, immediately provided all facilities. In the future, if we work together, we can give a strong system to the youth,” he said.
MQM-P MPA Ali Khursheedi said Orangi was famous globally for its slum population because of a lack of basic facilities. “When the people of Orangi Town sent us to the parliament, we tried to provide basic facilities here,” he said.
Thanking Haque for his efforts, he said higher education for the youth of Orangi was being made possible today.
Dr Suhail Rajput, the secretary of the ministry of IT and telecommunication, said the ministry’s main motto was to strengthen the youth and people of the country with the latest technologies. “Its practical implementation is in the form of a new campus of Pakistan’s only IT and e-Learning based university.”
Rector Virtual University Prof Dr Arshad Saleem Bhatti said VU graduates were preferred in the IT industry due to hands-on training as self-learners, while its graduates were working in dynamic fields across Pakistan in key positions, including the Pakistan Army.
