LUMS -- Lahore University of mis-Management Sciences

Once a reputable university, LUMS these days is collapsing into an institution which is being poorly planned and managed.

The prime reason being the growing number of admissions in the University, especially in the Bachelor’s programme. The modest infra-structure and the resources of the university are barely enough to support the current a population.

The latest development in this regard is the conversion of rooms that had been originally designed for double-occupancy. These rooms now have been converted to accommodate three people, with absolutely no living space, not even enough for plugging in your sound-system and your PC at the same time, since the plugs now hide behind the newly inserted beds! The hostel rooms are planned specifically for two residents with two cupboards, two desks and two internet access nodes. Now due to the third bed, even the existing facilities can’t be accessed, let alone shared. The overall space is barely adequate for two people; cramming three people has caused extreme inconvenience as well as loss of privacy. And to add topping to the ice-cream, sharing of cupboards is part of the new terms. This was almost hilarious! And to add salt to the wounds, the university administration puts up a notice: “triple occupancy will be retained until a new hostel building is constructed. The issue is under consideration!”

Last year, I also witnessed a super model of management and planning. The new male hostel took a full 1-year to get equipped with basic accessories such as washing machines, dryers, television, coolers in the corridors and door knobs! Its residents had to go to other hostel buildings for doing things such as watching television and washing clothes, while paying in full for all the above services. WOW! Management.

If this is the level of planning in a university that is teaching management, god helps those who graduate.

Another bizarre phenomenon. Whenever there used to be an assignment due for more than two courses, you could easily say your assignment good-bye, because of the overflow of people in the computer-labs. The computer labs with hardly 170 PCs are barely enough to take the load of the number of people admitted. This year the situation promises to get even worse since there is an increase in the number admitted by hundreds while not a single PC is added. [Sigh]

LUMS has taken all the measures to transform itself into a ‘modern’ university. The most commendable one is the implementation of IT in various areas. Course-registration is one of them. Every three months, whenever the course registration system experiences traffic (i.e. when it is needed) it manages to waste your time through the “Cannot find Server” message. More simply put, it means that there are already enough people hatched onto it, scream and come back another time. And finally, only after five or six attempts at different times of the day, you will mange to get through. WOW! Technology…!

Another extraordinary step that was taken by the LUMS administration last year to ‘manage’ the clogged up university internet network. The University management enforced a ban on the download and streaming of music and video files from the Internet (which are, by the way, the basic reasons for having a fast internet connection). So now, if you want to see Ronald Reagan speaking you’ll have to be content with staring at his picture and reading his speech aloud in an American accent; and there is no more of those refreshing lectures from MIT Website, that provided an escape to people like me who get fed up of Economics very often… alas, what a loss…

Another feature of LUMS seems to be its growing faculty to student ratio. The faculty to student ratio in any good university of the world is hardly ever more than 1:15. In LUMS, 1:40 is a norm.

And now comes the best part of the nightmare. Knowing all of the above, the LUMS administration can justify all of the above and does so without a hint of embarrassment. We have signed innumerable petitions, made protests both on individual and collective levels, but they seem to be so indifferent, latest example being the triple occupancy issue of the hostels. The LUMS administration sends us a notice informing us about this conversion; it said that this was in relation to administration’s effort to make LUMS ‘a truly national university!’ Oh… a revelation! Shoving three people into an already stuffed room makes a national university. One wonders what it takes to create an international one…

On a serious note we also have to bear in mind the fact that it is the most expensive university, not only in Pakistan, but in the whole of South-Asian region. LUMS' MBA Program (rated at #23 in Asia – Asiaweek May 5, 2000) costs US $11,957, compared to National University of Singapore (which is rated at #2) and costs US $7,180 while Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (which is rated at #1) costs US $1,967. Quality is the reason parents are willing to bear the relatively higher cost of education here.

If things progress in the way they are, it won’t be long when LUMS would serve as a substitute to the current government institutions.

“Say Bye to Quality” seems to be the new LUMS slogan.