PESHAWAR, July 3: Stepping into a male-dominated educational institution had always been a challenge but she faced it courageously just to pave the way for other women to follow.
Since the start of her teaching career, Professor Noor Jehan has made it to educational institutions, where no woman had entered before and where she’d managed to reach top positions.
“Despite challenges, some woman had to come forward to prove that women were no less than men when it came to running an institution of higher education. And I took the plunge,” this woman vice chancellor at University of Swabi told Dawn.
She was the first woman vice chancellor of Islamia College University.
Hailing from a backward village of Takht-i-Nusrati of Karak district, Professor Noor has studied in a small village school and got her high school education in South Waziristan Agency. She had a PhD degree and post-doctorate in environmental and medical geology from the US.
She said she’d worked as the only woman in the Sarhad Development Authority and later became the first woman to teach in an engineering college.
Professor Noor was also the first woman chairwoman of the environmental sciences.
“There were subtle threats but I always fought for my ground in the male-dominated culture,” she said.
About her professional career, Professor Noor said she had always been the first women to join a male-dominated education institution.
She admitted that she took charge of Islamia College University, an erstwhile prestigious exclusive male college, after its first Vice Chancellor Ajmal Khan was kidnapped.
“Others feared taking up the charge but I thought why I shouldn’t take this as a challenge,” said Professor Noor.
As a VC, she noticed that there was quota of different seats for boys but no such facility existed for the students of its newly-established girls college.
“I was the first vice chancellor to ensure a handicapped girl got admitted there on quota of special persons,” says Professor Noor, who feels sorry that recently, she saw in an advertisement that the said quota was again withdrawn.
However, she continues to strive for improving the higher education facility in Swabi district.
The University of Swabi has become the first among the new universities set up by the previous government to be a registered higher education institution just within five months of its establishment, claimed vice chancellor University of Swabi.
“When I took over as VC, there were not enough funds in the university account to pay my salary,” she said, adding that there were other infrastructure and staff problems which were being tackled.
Professor Noor said the University of Swabi had no shortage of funds and she was searching for suitable land for the building and was trying to build a road for the benefit of students and staff.
“I want to face the challenges so that no one would doubt women’s competence and hesitate to appoint them on decision-making positions,” she said.
