The Trans World Muslim University coming up in Kashmir under the auspices of the Jamiat ahle Hadees seeks to provide quality education to kashmiri students. Shazia Khan reports
The Trans World Muslim University under the aegis of Jamiat Ahle Hadees, Jammu and Kashmir is the first of its kind to work under the guide lines of western education policy. Planed to be constructed at Nar-Kor, district Budgam, the university will spread over 100 kannal of land and is expected to be completed within two years time span.
Like other universities, Trans World Muslim University also offers beautiful and spacious environment. The building would be constructed by one of the top architectures of India.
“The building of TWMU is yet to be completed but the university will start functioning from two Jamiat university buildings located at Parray Pora and Taniki Pora for the coming session in March 2010”, says Dr. Mushtaq Ahmad Siddiqui project director of Trans World Muslim University. Dr Mushtaq also heads the department of Immunology and Molecular Sciences and is proposed to be its first vice-chancellor of university.
Dr Mushtaq said, “We understand the modern day challenge of contemporary world and the university will be the response to these”. TWMU is the blend of entrepreneurship and academics with a focus on human resources.
The selection of students at TWMU will be based on its own entrance test with the intake capacity of around 50 students in each department. “There are so many brilliant students in the valley but they fail to qualify the state level CET to get admission in medical or technical college. They are left by one or two points in these entrance tests and just one or two marks can not make them inferior to those who succeed in getting admission in professional colleges. Those students are still bright. We would like to counsel them first and help them to understand the depth of fields like economics, business, law, architecture designing. There are world markets available to these courses”, adds Dr Mushtaq.
The idea of constructing the Trans World Muslim University was conceived in 1990 when Jamiat Ahle Hadees mooted the idea of launching the Islamic Shairah University. However the idea did not work up. “There was no positive response from the governments of that time for the allotment of land. For seventeen years the state bureaucracy played dilly-dallying tactics for issuing formal orders in that regard”, says Dr Mushtaq.
In 2007 Jamiat approached former Chief Minster Ghulam Nabi Azad and after discussing the whole project of Trans – World Muslim University, the land was allotted to Jamiat in February 2008.
However, after the allotment of the land the concept of building Shairah University got transferred into normal university. “The university conceived at present moment would be having a complete complement of courses ranging from medical sciences to architecture and designing, from Business Management to Islamic Economics and Law”, says Dr, Mushtaq. Besides producing Islamic scholars and scientists, university is also expected to generate big employment potential and boost the valley’s socio-economic condition”, he added.
Highlighting the salient features of university Dr. Mushtaq said the university is divided into five schools, which include “School of Islamic Shariah, Business School, School of Economics, School of Architecture and Designing, and School of Law”. “We still have retained School of Islamic Shariah as a priority.
The school will deal with the comparative aspect of Islamic Shariah and its main focus would be to bridge the gap between different sectarians of Islam like Shafism, Hanfism, Malliki, Humbli etc”, says Dr Mushtaq.
The second important school of university is Business School. “We are in the process to start five years integrated professional course of Business management which include graduation and post graduation so that candidate can become totally professional”, says Dr Mushtaq.
Quoting American concept of education Dr Mushtaq said that if you want to pick up a candidate right at the early stage and provide him full professional course of five years he can become a dedicated and skilled business tycoon.
In most of the courses the university has tried to build up integrated course of five years which lead students from graduation to post graduation. “The policy of university is not fabricating a graduate from a post graduation.
By giving students two years training at master’s level we can’t get professionals in any field”, says Dr Mushtaq.
At School of Economics the management is thinking to make students the brand of Islamic economics.” During last two years, the capitalist economic model observed recession and that affected the whole world’s economy. Most of the economists say had there been an alternative, economic model world could have switched over and hence could avoid recession.
Experts believe that Islamic economy model can have tendency to fill up the gap between economic order and recession. For the reason, education council of TWMU has decided to teach both Islamic economy as well as normal capitalist economy. For Law students the school of law will deal with both usual as well as Muslim Shariah Law.
The university will be the first to start School of B Arch and Designing in valley. “We have strong feeling that many students of the valley are interested in architecture but irony is that there is no single architecture school in valley. Even NIT is not conducting any degree in architecture. As a result every year a good number of students move out from valley to different parts of India and spend lacs for architecture and medicine. A part from architecture, School of Designing will help our handicraft sector. There is a need to develop professionals in handicraft sector. In Europe and other western markets the carpets imported from Iran and china do good business. It is not because they provide best quality carpets but their designs are better then ours. The school of designing will help students to receive better training to make better design.”
Dr Mushtaq Sidiqui said our present education system is compulsive. We have created vertical type of education system here in valley. Every body here is graduate, post graduate or above. Normally in other parts of world education system is pyramid but here you are compelled to go for degrees because our job market does not accommodate matriculate or 12th pass out.
For less capable students the university have put up two schools -School of applied and integrated Science and School of Farm Technology. Both the schools will conduct small diploma type of course. “It would be for such candidates who don’t want to study further. The course will help them to develop skills in leather technique and herb cultivation”, says Dr Mushtaq. The diploma courses will be completed in three semesters which include theoretical as well as practical part of course so that the students will come out as strong entrepreneurs.
TWMU is also in process to establish the School of Medicine but the management is thinking to start it in a reverse direction. “Normally there is a process to build up a medical college and then look for the internship of young doctors at different hospitals. Though the valley lacks good number of hospitals therefore we are planning to construct hospital within the vicinity of university campus in two years time. After making the hospital fully functional we would approach to Medical Council of India and ask them to recognise us a medical college”, says
With around 16 departments the university will have 200 plus staff that will include regular professors, readers and other managing staff. Besides that university will receive a good number of visiting professors from Kashmir Diaspora working at abroad universities. “They have agreed that every year they will be coming for six months delivering lecturers and taking class”, says Dr Mushtaq.
The Trans World Muslim University Project with cost running in crores is entirely funded by Islamic Development Bank. “IDB has assured us to finance for whole project. Though IDB has number of member countries mostly Muslims. As India is non member country the chances of receiving the loan was less but we project ourselves as Muslim dominated state in a non Muslim country. Our plan is yet to go there. We have only negotiated with them and we received positive response from Governing council of IDB”, said Dr Mushtaq.
Trans World Muslim University is the third university in the state coming up under the direct control of a religious school-of-thought after the Vaishnav Devi University at Katra and the Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awanti Pora. The former runs under the aegis of Shri Mata Vaisnav Dev Trust while the latter under, Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Auqaf Trust.
