Fuuast teachers urge CJP to take notice of varsity’s issues

Teachers of the Federal Urdu University for Arts, Science and Technology (Fuuast) have requested the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the crisis and malpractices in the University.

The educators made this demand during a press conference held at Karachi Press Club on Tuesday. Prof Dr Iftikhar Ahmed Tahiri, Dr Irfan Aziz, Dr Asghar Dashti, Dr Faisal Javed and other teachers were present.

They maintained that the auditor general’s report had found serious financial irregularities in the university’s funds allocated for scholarship grants for deserving students. “But these funds were spent on provision of payments to favourite staff members on, illegal appointments and paying medical allowances to the faculty members who were sacked under various charges,” a speaker said.

They maintained that the country's president, also the varsity chancellor, had appointed “the most incompetent deputy chair senate in varsity who lacks the capacity to resolve the basic problems”.

They blamed the Fuuast Senate deputy chair was consuming all his energies to restore the former acting vice chancellor, Sulaiman D Muhammad, despite the ex-VC being removed “after plagiarism charges against him in his thesis for acquiring the PhD degree from the Karachi University”. These allegations were later proved against him, they added.

They pointed out that around 25 cases regarding the Urdu university were pending in three of the high courts, namely the Islamabad High Court, the Sindh High Court, and the Lahore High Court.

“The varsity's legal advisors are spending funds to pursue these cases. As a result the university faces is financial constraints and the faculty members are deprived of salaries, allowances, promotions and other legal rights,” a speaker said.

They further maintained that four departments, namely the Teachers Education Department, the Law Education Department, the Pharmacy Department and the Engineering Department, had closed admissions because the relevant accreditation councils were unpaid for last three years. “The relevant councils are not allowing the students to get admission in these departments.”

Answering a question, Irfan Aziz, secretary general of the Urdu University Teachers’ Association, said the varsity was facing the worst administrative chaos because the President House had failed to make regular appointments on key positions.

He said appointing acting management was not a permanent solution to all problems in the varsity because the acting management had no authority to look into all matters except routine dealings.

He suggested if the varsity chancellor made regular appointments on the key positions, including the posts of VC, registrar, director finance and controller of examination, the varsity would become fully functional and malpractices would be reduced.