The syndicate of the University of Peshawar (UoP) has approved the merger of 20 academic departments, citing declining student enrolment across several programmes. The department of Persian will merge with the department of Urdu to form the department of Urdu and Persian. The department of Seerat will merge with the department of Islamiat to form the department of Islamic and Seerat Studies. Sources said the minister for higher education, Meena Khan Afridi, had earlier directed university officials to merge under-enrolled departments to ease financial pressure on the institution. He said the merged departments belonged to the same faculties, and that the university would continue to offer more than 70 BS programmes.