The news has already been confirmed by Imtiaz Inayat Elahi, chairman, Capital Development Authority (CDA). They intend floating international tenders for an “Educational City” in Islamabad. The university campuses would either be built at Shakarparian or Kuri.

”Educational City is being planned on a public-private partnership in order to make Islamabad an educational hub,” says Mr Elahi

It is important to note, as disclosed by the CDA chairman, that educational campuses would also house hostels for the students, teachers and other professionals facing accommodation problems in the city.

Another thing pointed out by the genteleman is that the CDA also plans to establish more local educational institutes where the students would be provided international-standard education. These will be built outside Educational City.

There is no harm in having foreign school and university campuses in Pakistan but how long are we going to keep running from our own identity? Foreign or western institutions, no matter how high in stature they might be, would promote western values while failing to make provision for Islamic aspects in their way of teaching.

Subject to law and public morality, we in Pakistan encourage the minorities to freely profess and practice their religions and develop their cultures. Not allowing the Muslims to have a public education system of their own, which protects their religion and culture, poses a danger for the ideology of Pakistan.

Turning back the pages of history, while peeping into the period of World War-I and the Khilafat Movement, we would find that Aligarh University, which was established on the foundations of the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College, was at a time boycotted by all the communities of India including Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis, etc.

It would be a matter of interest for many to note that Aligarh University initially came into being as a conspiracy against the Muslims in order to produce a pro-western educated lot. It was a tool in the hands of British imperialists and their handful of sympathisers, who wanted to destroy the religion, culture, traditions and values of the people of this region. Today, no one can deny that Aligarh University is a well-reputed institution. However, it has very little to do with the struggle for Pakistan. In the same regard, although, certain leaders from the university became active members of the Pakistan movement, they had different ideologies as compared to the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Dr Allama Mohammad Iqbal.

The idea of foreign universities in Islamabad reminds one of Quaid-i-Azam's message to the All-Pakistan Educational Conference held in Karachi on Nov 27, 1947, where he said “Under the foreign rule for over a century, in the very nature of things, I regret sufficient attention has not been paid to the education of our people and if we are to make any real speedy and substantial progress, we must earnestly tackle this question and bring our educational policy and programmes on the lines suited to the genius of our people consonant with our history and culture, and having regard to modern conditions and vast developments that have taken place all over the world.”

He said “There is no doubt that the future of our state will and must greatly depend upon the type of education and the way in which we bring up our children as future servants of Pakistan. Education does not merely mean academic education, and even that appears to be of very poor type. What we have to do is to mobilise our people and build the character of our future generations.”

It is high time that we build the character of our future generations by not just concentrating on academic education and inviting foreigners to establish educational institutions here. We must rebuild our educational system on the foundations of the Islamia and Jamia Millia schools, colleges and universities. We should also extend a chance to our minorities to develop their educational systems.

The forthcoming Educational City should comprise institutions such as Islamia University, which even today has branches in all the provinces in the form of the University of Karachi, Punjab University, Khyber University, Balochistan University, Kashmir University, etc., so that the whole of Pakistan is represented in Islamabad.

By allowing foreign universities to open campuses in the heart of Pakistan, the CDA, too, is going to earn a couple of million dollars. Still, if this is the case, one wonders what was the need of creating Pakistan outside the Indian union and why the British were not allowed to continue with their rule.