Late Syed Shuaib Ahmed
Syed Shuaib Ahmad Saheb, the former Manager and later Director of Karamat Husain Muslim Girl’s P.G. College, Lucknow, had a vision and a passion for women's education.
Born in 1940 at Tanda, an industrial town of the then Faizabad district, he held many administrative posts under the U.P. State Govt. and retired as Joint Secretary to Govt. of Uttar Pradesh in 1998. Soon after retirement, he was unanimously elected the Manager of Karamat Husain Muslim Girl’s P.G. College, Lucknow, the most prestigious Women’s College of Muslim Minority Community in Northern India which offers quality education to students from Nursery to Post Graduation.
The progress of the college largely depended on the efficient management of Syed Shuaib Ahmad who, after assuming the post of Manager in 1998, directed his untiring efforts towards the betterment of the college. His visionary zeal and administrative experience benefited the college in every field.
To give career options to students, he changed a single faculty college into a multi-faculty institution, offering Post Graduate in 2000, B.Sc. in 2002, B.Ed. in 2005 and B.Com. in 2013. Simultaneously, he transformed its infrastructure to support the new courses, and today the college boasts of independent blocks housing the faculty of Arts, Science, Commerce and the College of Education. He always felt that the campus must be a complete entity, capable of engaging the students with interests other than academic. With this goal in mind, he developed outdoor sports such as basketball and hockey and indoor sports facilities as well. He digitised the library and built a modern reading room with comfortable seating for the students. The college canteen, designed on the pattern of a modern cafe, remains a popular haunt for the students. He also constructed a new hostel building to provide residential facilities to students from far- flung rural areas of the state. Thus, under his able leadership, our college grew from strength to strength.
He was closely associated with the U.P. Cricket Association since 1965 and held the post of Joint Secretary cum Director in the Association. He was also a member of the Programme and Fixture Committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. Further, he served as the General Secretary of All India Minorities Forum for Democracy.
During his lifetime, he was awarded and felicitated many times. He received the “Bharat Jyoti Award” by Indian International Friendship Society at Senate Hall, New Delhi in 2011 for his outstanding contribution in the field of Education. The subsequent year, he was presented the “Seva Chakra” award at Bhubhaneshwar (Orissa) by “Aaj Tak News” for his distinguished services to the nation in promoting Education.
In 2015, Syed Shuaib Ahmed was honoured by the Progressive Cultural Society, Lucknow and was presented the ‘Shan-e-Oudh Award’ for his commendable services as an Educationist.
We were indeed blessed to have learnt many valuable lessons from Syed Shuaib Ahmad Saheb. Among them were sincerity towards one’s job, punctuality, cooperation among fellow workers, being formally and well- dressed at the workplace and many more. However, a lot of positive lessons were still to be learnt.
He passed away on the 20th of August 2020 at the age of 80, after a relentless battle with heart and brain ailments. He was surrounded by his distraught family and grieving colleagues.
Forever in our thoughts,
Gone but shall never be forgotten-
You will always be the light of our lives.
