Like every year, at the advent of new academic session, admission in morning shift in the model colleges working under Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) remained a Herculean task for most of the parents.
It was announced by the government that evening shift would be abolished from the model colleges from the previous academic session to provide equal treatment and facilities to the students, avoiding discrimination of any kind.
But the relevant department of FDE has not paid any attention to the sufferings of the parents who are bound to educate their children in these colleges in the evening shift, spoiling their routine life and engagements.
The model colleges are earning huge amounts from the evening shifts through charging double fee than the morning shift and the principals are also not interested toward implementing the decision of abolishment of the evening shift.
“My family has suffered mentally while trying to shift our child from the evening shift to morning at the Islamabad Model College for Boys (IMCB), F-8/4 due to weak eye sight of my child”, parent of a child said while talking to APP.
“We get permission letter from FDE after submitting an application citing the required reasons and fulfilling the terms and conditions and showed it to the Principal of the college but he rigidly refused to listen anything,” the parent said.
Many children were accommodated in the morning shift by the principal without following the merit while ignoring those who have genuine problems and deserve to be considered, the parent added.
The FDE has a policy that if the other child is studying at any of its college in morning shift then the shift can be changed from evening to morning while the shift can also be changed citing some medical reason. “We fulfilled all the terms and conditions and after day long efforts got nothing”.
Tahir, a senior lecturer at a local college, said such discriminatory attitude creates psychological impact on the minds of the students who feel themselves deprived in front of students studying in morning shifts.
Once the parents admit their children in the model colleges and then they fell prey to the stubborn attitude and favouritism of the principals who refuse to understand the problems of the parents, he observed. The principals only accommodate the children in the morning shifts on the basis of favourtism, he added.
It was the decision of the government, under its efforts to realise the dream of implementing unified education system in the federal capital, that the evening shift would be abolished to end discrimination but no strategy has been devised so far to get it implemented, he said.
FDE Model Colleges Director Dr Tariq Masood said there is no willingness on the part of officials of the FDE or Capital Administration and Development Division (CA&DD) to abolish evening shift or ensure a unified education system in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).
It is absolutely a matter of fact that the parents visit FDE and model colleges on daily basis for changing the shift of their children from evening to morning but we have no more seats in morning shifts and we are helpless, he added.
Sleep apnea associated with higher cancer death: People with untreated sleep disordered breathing (SDB) are at a greater risk of dying from cancer than those who are not suffering from the chronic shuteye problem.
Sleep-Disordered breathing includes a group of disorders haracterized by abnormalities of respiratory pattern (pauses inbreathing) or the quantity of ventilation during sleep, Press TV reported.
Obstructive sleep apnea, the most common such disorder, is the periodic pausing of breathing during sleep that results in drops in oxygen levels in blood and causes nighttime snoring during the day.
Sleep-disordered breathing has already been tied to higher risk of health conditions such as lack of concentration, accidents, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke. A new study of 22-year mortality data on 1,522 cancer deaths revealed that the common sleep problem may also be associated with higher mortality caused by malignant tumors.
“Recent in vitro and animal studies have shown that repeated episodes of hypoxia (an inadequate supply of oxygen) are associated with accelerated cancer progression,” said lead researcher Dr. F.Javier Nieto of the University of Wisconsin, US. “Our results are the first to suggest that SDB is also associated with an increased risk of cancer mortality in humans.”
Participants with mild sleep apnea were just 0.1 times more likely to die from cancer than those without the problem while moderate SDB doubled the chances of cancer death, according to the findings presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference, in San Francisco.
Moreover, people with the most severe sleep apnea including 30or more episodes of low or no oxygen in an hour of sleep had about five times the risk of cancer death compared to peers without SDB. The researchers called for further studies to replicate their findings and to examine the relationships between sleep disordered breathing, obesity, and cancer mortality.
