Interviews for appointment of VCs begin today

PESHAWAR: After more than a year long wait, the interviews for appointment of vice-chancellors of three public sector universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are finally being held in the federal capital from today.

The two positions of vice-chancellors at University of Agriculture, Peshawar and University of Haripur had been advertised on November 2, 2017. The position at the University of Agriculture fell vacant after the retirement of Dr Zahoor Ahmad Swati in December 2017. In Haripur, Prof Kaleem Abbasi could not continue as vice-chancellor of the university soon after his appointment in July 2017.

He had given the reason for his unexpected retirement before formally starting his duties at the university as his appointment as vice-chancellor of the University of Azad Kashmir. Some reports, however, suggested a different story.

The pro-vice-chancellors in both the universities were given the acting charge. They remained in office on acting basis for more than a year.

The position of the vice-chancellor Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women University fell vacant in April this year. However, the incumbent vice-chancellor Prof Dr Razia Sultana was given an extension till appointment of a permanent vice-chancellor and the position was advertised later.

According to sources in the Higher Education Department, 111 candidates had applied for the post of vice-chancellor of University of Agriculture and University of Haripur. The department, after the initial scrutiny, forwarded a list of 92 eligible candidates to the academic and search committee for making the appointments.

The process, however, got delayed for unknown reasons. In October 2018, the academic and search committee was reconstituted with almost the same members under the chairmanship of Dr Attaur Rahman. He was appointed by the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during its previous stint in power.

After the reconstitution of the committee, the process was expedited a bit and the shortlisting was made within a month. Some 22 candidates from the list of 92 have been shortlisted and called for the interview in Islamabad.

For SBBWU, over a dozen of candidates had applied and almost all of them were eligible as per HED criteria. However, the academic and search committee has called only six of them for the interview.

It looks absurd and administratively and financially burdensome that interviews for KP universities are arranged in Islamabad. Not only the candidates but almost the entire Higher Education Department has to move to Islamabad where they would have to stay for three days for the interviews.

On the pretext of ensuring transparency, certain senior and busy people from across the country have been selected for the academic and search committee. They are unable to find time for coming to Peshawar to conduct the interviews. This is one of the main causes of delay in appointment of vice chancellors.

This committee had failed to ensure transparency and merit in appointment of vice chancellors during its previous tenure. Merit was reportedly violated in making the appointments at a number of universities.

After the panel interviews, the academic and search committee would propose three names at least for each university. The names would be forwarded to the governor/chancellor of public sector universities through the channel of Higher Education Department and Chief Minister’s Secretariat. The governor would pick one of the proposed names for each of the three universities on the recommendation of the chief minister.