In the year 1988, the English Language Development Centre was established in collaboration with the British Council and the University Grant's Commission (Presently the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan) at Mehran University Jamshoro. This Centre was initially run by a British Director Prof. Brian Bamber. The major aim of this centre was to help students and faculty to improve their English in order to fully understand engineering courses taught in English. Later, under expansion phase, ELDC was relocated to its new state of the art building at MUET Jamshoro. Acknowledging performance of the Centre, ELDC was included amongst 5 shortlisted institutions in public universities of Pakistan considered by English Language Teaching Reforms Project (ELTR) of HEC Pakistan for the establishment of National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research. Later, the ELTR Project of the HEC of Pakistan established the state-of-the-art Self-Access Center at the ELDC, Mehran, UET, Jamshoro which is considered as the first in province Sindh a hub of teachers' training in the province. The SAC offers training on Computer Assisted Language Learning and Internet based learning.
In 2014, under the leadership of Prof. Dr Habibullah Pathan ELDC witnessed further expansions in the degree programs. Catering to the needs of the teacher community, ELDC started MS program in field of Linguistics which is recognized by HEC of Pakistan. In 2019, ELDC launched its first-ever undergraduate program BS English also. In March 2019, ELDC in collaboration with Higher Education Commission of Pakistan organized its first international conference on Challenges & Innovations in 21st century (ICELL’19) at Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro. This conference was attended by international and national scholars of eminence such as David Crystal.
Currently, the Centre is headed by Dr Shumaila Aijaz Memon. CELL is gearing up to launch the Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics. Besides, CELL also has launched an international research journal in Language and Linguistics to promote research culture and engage the ELT community in research dialogue. CELL operates an active society of Language and Literature which works to groom the intellectual and literary sensibilities of the its alumni-MS and BS. Besides offering degree awarding programs in English and English Language courses, in 2022 CELL has established a ‘Creative Learning Space’ within its premises. The CLS offers seminars and one to one session to CELL BS and MS students on career counselling, and other dimensions of intellectual and emotional growth of a student.
