Coronavirus: Punjab to convert university hostels into quarantine facilities

LAHORE:The Punjab government has decided to convert hostels of public sector universities across the province into quarantine facilities, in case of any emergency, in order to keep potential carriers of the coronavirus in isolation, reported The News on Monday.

The directives came after Punjab reported its first case of coronavirus. The provincial authorities have stepped up efforts and imposed Section-144 on Sunday to contain the spread of COVID-19 that has affected more than 50 people across country.

The Higher Education Department (HED) Punjab on Sunday issued directions to Vice Chancellors (VCs) of all public sector universities to get hostels of their respective universities vacated by 8:00 pm the same day. A number of universities had already got their hostels vacated after the federal government’s instructions of shutting down the campuses across the country in order to curb the spread of coronavirus.

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However, after the HED notification, all the hostels of public universities were vacated by Sunday night. In the provincial metropolis and in the province, Punjab University, with 8,000 plus boarding students, has the maximum number of hostel facilities. PU has a total of 28 hostels out of which 12 are for female students and the rest are for male students.

A government official, seeking anonymity, said the move was aimed at freeing up space in hospitals for more seriously ill patients in case of a potential larger outbreak of coronavirus as seen in different countries of the world.

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According to PU Registrar Dr Khalid Khan, the university has over 100 foreign boarding students who are mostly from Sudan, Somalia, Nepal, China and other parts of the world, and they have been adjusted in two separate hostels after rest of the hostels were vacated.

The University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Lahore also vacated 16 of its hostels having around 4,000 boarding students. According to UET Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mansoor Sarwar, the university has 173 foreign boarding students, mostly male, belonging to Somalia, Yemen, Jordan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka while one female student from China who have been accommodated accordingly. 

He further said UET-Kala Shah Kaku (KSK) Campus has 3 hostels with 580 boarding students. Prof Mansoor Sarwar added all the hostels had been vacated while the foreign students had been accommodated in two hostels.

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Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) has also vacated 4 of its hostels having 589 boarding. There is not a single foreign boarding student at LCWU. Similarly, the Government College University (GCU) Lahore has vacated four of its hostels which had around 1200 boarding students.

The University of Education has vacated two of its hostels at its Township campus and one at Bank Road campus. The university has over 800 boarding students in total. 

Talking to The News, Secretary HED Sajid Zafar Daal said the hostels of public universities were vacated as government’s efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus and to secure government properties for any quarantine facilities.

It is pertinent to mention here that as per the same notification, the VCs of public universities have been directed to only engage non-teaching staff (administrative staff) in their respective universities during the closure till April 05 which means teaching staff would not be joining the universities in the meanwhile. 

To another question Secretary HED said, “If private universities are asking staff to come and the staff does not feel comfy to come, we can restrict that,” he said while adding “We shall see if there is still need to do it Monday (today) for private universities.”

Originally published in The News