Irregularities detected in BZU distance education

MULTAN

Some alleged irregularities have been detected at the Bahauddin Zakariya University Distance Education as the varsity officials hired the services of unapproved, non-specialised external examiners for the specialised subject of Masters in Public Administration, The News has learnt.

The professional degrees of nearly 100 students would be at stake on taking viva and comprehensive examination in Masters in Public Administration by unconcerned, unapproved and non-specialised persons. The BZU senior faculty members said that the degrees of the MPA could be canceled. The BZU insiders said that the Distance Education Directorate hired the services of Awais Bin Aslam from a private company for conducting a viva of the Masters. Later, the university appointed the same person for taking comprehensive examination in the Masters of Public Administration in Distance Education on April 9. However, on the students protest, the varsity replaced Awais Bin Aslam with Education University Assistant Prof Sohail Ahmad, allegedly a non-specialised person in the PA Masters Distance Education Director Prof Dr Azra Asghar Ali called private person Awais Bin Aslam for comprehensive examination out of the list of experts. Awais conducted viva at the BZU Distance Education last week while he also conducted internship viva of the students of the PA Masters. When contacted, BZU Distance Education Director Prof Dr Azra Asghar Ali denied dealing the affairs illegally and said that the appointment of Awais was cancelled at the eleventh hour when it as learnt that he was serving in a private company. She said that the services of Education University Assistant Prof Sohail Ahmad were hired to conduct the comprehensive examination of the Masters in PA. She claimed that no private person was hired to conduct the MPA examination. When Education University was contacted, the officials said that AP Sohail Ahmad was specialised in Information Technology, not in MPA. The BZU senior faculty members said that if an external examiner with different degree instead of MPA conducts the comprehensive exam and viva, the degree would be challenged and cancelled.

Tribute: A function was organised to pay tribute to great poet and writer Ch Muhammad Sadiq famously known as Lala Sehrai on his 17th death anniversary here on Monday.

The ceremony was jointly organised by the Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a local NGO. Senior politician Makhdoom Javed Hashmi while speaking as the chief guest said that Lala Sehrai was an author of 20 books and he was a symbol of change. He said that his various books, including ‘Chaman Meri Umeedonka’, ‘Nae Phool Purani Khushboo’ and ‘Noor Minara’, were a great work. The other speakers, including Prof Dr Aslam Ansari, Dr Rafiuddin, Khawaja Razi Haidar, Dr Riaz Majid, Naseer Ahmed, Dr Mukhtar Zafar, Dr Javed Sadiq, Dr Sadiq Ajmal, Hafiz Iqbal, Shakir Hussain Shakir, Prof Zubair Ahmed, Prof Anis, Dr Muhammad Shah and Hafiz Abdul Waheed, paid rich tribute to Lala Sehrai and said that he was a versatile poet and writer. They said that Lala was lucky that a large number of people gathered here to listen to his poetry.

The speakers also lauded the services of the MCCI for promotion of literature and art in the south Punjab.