for the Masters programme.
“Considering that it was the university’s first batch, it was not a bad start as every institute faces such problems initially.”
The sacked lecturer also claimed that the decision was strongly condemned by a representative of the HEC during the Syndicate’s meeting held recently.
He alleged that majority of the Syndicate members were outsiders and less than half of them used to attend the meetings.
Appointed as assistant professor in the Economics department, Dr Ahmar Qasim Qazi also endorsed Mangi’s stance claiming that appointments were not contractual or conditional but were done on a regular basis.
He said low admissions did not have anything to do with the teachers’ as they are not a part of the process.
“It is the responsibility of the Sindh government to pay for our salaries and if the VC was facing difficulties in this regard he should have consulted with the provincial government.”
However, Justice Ali, while speaking to The News said, “We only got admissions for the law programme but there were absolutely no admissions for the Bachelors programme for the three departments.”
He said the university had for the past three months been paying Rs0.5 million to the sacked employees and had spent over Rs5 million on advertising admissions besides also spending money over establishing stalls at educational exhibitions and opting for other means of publicity but it did not get the desired results.
Justice Ali claimed the decision to close down the departments was taken at the Syndicate with the consensus of representatives of the Sindh Assembly, HEC and HEC Sindh and additional secretaries of law and education among others to avoid financial crisis in future.
“The sacked employees were paid a month’s salary with the notice but the University cannot afford to keep spending Rs6 million annually over their salaries without getting anything in return.”
Justifying the university’s decision under the light of the problems faced by the Pakistan Steel Mills and Pakistan International Airlines because he claimed they had failed to realise the impact of overstaffing, the VC said that SZABUL could not have sustained if it continued on the same trajectory.
There were universities who were trying to manage their affairs through bank loans but we do not wish to become in to one of those institutes, he said.
All appointments were made on merit and decision to terminate the employees was also taken as per merit, the VC further added.
“We do not want to waste the government’s money.”
The university’s registrar, Sharf Ali Shah, further added that all sacked employees were on a probation period and the decision was taken after taking the Syndicate into confidence whereas all formalities were complied with.
SZABUL was inaugurated on April 8, 2015 and was offering courses in Law, Business Administration, Criminology and Economics; the classes were scheduled to start from July 22.