Amid the low student response for admissions, The Women University Swabi (WUS) in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday decided to shut admissions for seven subjects, Dawn News reported on Sunday.
The Dawn News reported that the dropped subjects included statistics, journalism, social work, Arabic, diagnostic medical sonography and clinical laboratory science.
The news daily reported that the officials from the university have confirmed the development and said that the low response of students forced the varsity management to stop offering admissions in seven subjects during the current year.
However, the University said that those who have enrolled in the programs would complete their degree programme.
Another official said some subjects were expected to continue and some might be merged into other related subjects.
Meanwhile, the low response of students and delay in the announcement of the higher secondary school examination results forced the varsity management to extend the last date for admissions in different disciplines for a month, sources said.
They said admissions for the fall semester of 2023 were announced a few days ago, and the last date was fixed as August 18. However, the university could not receive a good number of admission forms, said the sources.
Earlier, it was announced that the entire admission process would be completed by this month’s end, and classes will be started on Sept 1.
However, now the last date for admissions has been extended to Sept 18. However, the university website did not announce when the classes would begin.
Meanwhile, at least 140 cases of threats and attacks against journalists, media professionals and media organisations were reported in Pakistan over the past year, indicating an annual increase of over 60 per cent.
The annual Pakistan Press Freedom Report, prepared by the media rights watchdog Freedom Network, showed that Islamabad was the riskiest place to practise journalism in Pakistan, as 56, or 40 per cent, violations took place in the city, Dawn reported.
Punjab was the second worst, with 35 (25 per cent) cases of violations, followed by 32 (23 per cent) cases in Sindh.
The report, released ahead of the World Press Freedom Day celebrated on May 3, noted that the country’s media environment became riskier and more violent in recent months, as the number of attacks surged 63 per cent to 140 between May 2022 and March 2023 from 86 in 2021-22, Dawn reported.