The Government Sadiq Egerton College, also known as S.E. College, is an autonomous government college located in Bahawalpur, Pakistan.[1][2] It is named after the Nawab of Bahawalpur Nawab Sadiq Mohammad Khan Abbasi IV and Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab Sir Robert Eyles Egerton. It has a tradition of providing an education that uses academics, sports and co-curricular activities as tools for character development.[3]
The Government Sadiq Egerton College was founded as Sir Robert Egerton School, also called Upper Egerton School, in 1882.[4][5] Four years later the Bahawalpur State Education Committee resolved to upgrade the school; collegiate classes commenced on 25 April 1886, making it the third tertiary institution between Multan and Lahore.[5] The original site of the school was later converted into a hospital, named Zanana Hospital.[4] In 1892, degree classes were started.[5]
Tuition in the early decades was free, with scholarships and even travel expenses underwritten by the Bahawalpur Darbar. Only seven students entered in the inaugural year, but a rapid rise in enrolment forced a move in 1911 from cramped quarters in Mohallah Kajalpura to a purpose-built site outside Fareed Gate, what is now Sadiq Dane High School. The present red-brick campus was begun in 1950, when Bahawalpur's prime minister Colonel John Dring laid the foundation stone; teaching shifted there the following year.[5] Extensions in 1957 added science laboratories, new classrooms and an auditorium, while postgraduate teaching started in 1970.[5] Centenary celebrations were held in 1986, and the college marked its 125th anniversary with a three-day festival in April 2010.[5]
In 2016, the official website of the college was launched.[6]
Facilities, teaching, and student life
The Farid Gate campus centres on a 1950s double-storey academic block shaded by neem and banyan trees. Behind it stands Qasim Hostel, erected in 1951 for 150 boarders, alongside a later hostel built to meet demand. Separate wings house physics, chemistry, and zoology laboratories created during the 1957 expansion, and the barrel-roofed auditorium doubles as an examination and convocation hall. A postgraduate block was built in the late 2000s.[5]
Since 2012 provincial development grants by the Government of Punjab have added facilities for students. A dedicated bus service linking the campus with Bahawalpur's outskirts was inaugurated in November 2012.[7]
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