VC claims to have taken QAU to new heights of glory

Islamabad: Quaid-i-Azam University Vice-Chancellor Dr Javed Ashraf has claimed to have taken the country’s premier higher education institution to new heights of academic glory during the last more than three years.

“Our university has risen in stature during my term, which began on October 13, 2014. Three rankings by the Higher Education Commission since my arrival have placed us (QAU) first in Pakistan. For the first time, the Times Higher Education Index has ranked us in the top 500 universities globally. At the same time, the recent Asian rankings saw us break into the top 100 as we’re placed at 79th,” he told ‘The News’.

The VC said for more than two years, the QAU had been hiring only PhD holders as faculty members, while the number of faculty members not enrolled in PhD programmes had dropped from 47 to just seven.

He also said the number of publications by the university’s faculty had gone up sharply during the last three years. Dr Javed said he had inherited a huge fiscal deficit but reduced it by Rs225 million.

He also said he had got a mega PC-1 valuing Rs2 billion approved by the HEC for the university, secured the approval for the development of a major centre for earth sciences with Chinese support, and hired PhD holders from the leading US and European universities opposed to the previous practice of taking graduates of own university.

The VC claimed that during his stint at the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, as director, he began a four-year bachelor’s programme, the first at any public-sector institution in the country, hired a large number of PhD qualified faculty, and sent several young lecturers to the United States for doctoral studies.

“A major reason for my appointment to the QAU as VC was my excellent performance at the IBA,” he said. Accusing the ‘vested interests within the faculty’ of unleashing a campaign against him, Dr Javed insisted that among those were many, who were denied promotion.

“They feel a future VC may be more pliant and succumb to their demands,” he said. About the faculty members agitating against him, the VC also claimed that Dr Asif Ali and Dr Waheed Chaudhry, both former Academic Staff Association presidents, were demoted after the HEC ruled that they failed to meet promotion criteria.

He added that Dr Waheed had just one recognised publication in his entire career. Dr Javed said another protest leader, Dr Azhar Abbas Rizvi, who had applied for the high-salary Tenure Track System package, was rejected by an independent inquiry committee, two different selection boards and the syndicate due to the low quality of his research, while Dr Zafar Nawaz Jaspal and Dr Nazir Hussain’s promotion cases remained mired in legal proceedings for years.

He added that the current ASA president, Dr Aqeel Bukhari, was rejected by the selection board for promotion as he didn’t have a single publication in his first three years. The VC also rejected the allegation of embezzlement of funds against him and said he had sought a written explanation from the current ASA president, who ‘meekly’ denied making the accusation.

He said the university’s all three deans and registrar had expressed dismay at the ASA’s policy of agitation and urged it to have a discussion with them over grievances. “The ASA’s call for disruption of academic activities is unlawful and unreasonable. It appears to have a history of creating turmoil for VCs at the QAU. I am at least the fourth VC to be its target,” he said.