Malala Yousafzai, the acclaimed teenage activist from Pakistan, is one of five people who’ll receive honorary degrees from the University of King’s College next month for their commitment to education.
The 16-year-old was shot by the Taliban in 2012 in an attempt to silence her campaign for girls’ rights to education. She went on to found the Malala Fund, an organization that advocates for the education of girls and women in developing countries.
“In body and in spirit, Malala is living proof that courage and independence and mind can move the whole world,” King’s president George Cooper said.
Yousafzai, who now lives in England with her family, will not be at the May 15 ceremony at the Cathedral Church of All Saints in Halifax. The university said in a release that her degree will be conferred in England and a broadcast of that shown during the Halifax ceremony.
Gov. Gen. David Johnston, former premier John Hamm, former senator Michael Meighen and Carol Ann Charlebois, executive director of the Metro Non-Profit Housing Association, will also be honoured.
“All of them were selected for their interest in education and caring for human dignity and their dedication to public service,” Cooper said. “Each of them led a life filled with a depth of purpose, courage, generosity and independence of mind.”
The liberal arts university is marking its 225th year by honouring people who stand for everything King’s believes in, he added.
Not everyone approves of the choice of recipients.
Former King’s Students’ Union president Anna Dubinski doesn’t think Hamm should be honoured, because the province cut university funding during his time in office.
She says that put pressure on students to fund the system themselves.
“That doesn’t sound like supporting education to me.”
In 2006, the students union launched a petition to keep Hamm, a King’s alumnus, off the university’s board of governors. The union blamed his Conservative government’s cuts to university funding for the rising cost of tuition at King’s.
“The facts are all wrong,” Cooper said in response.
He said government funding to universities increased by $68 million during the time Hamm was premier.
Cooper also said Hamm set a plan in motion that helped Nova Scotia universities lower their tuition to the national average from levels that were previously much higher. AP
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