Four universities to bewithout VCs from tomorrow

LAHORE: As the Higher Education Department (HED) Punjab is awaiting formal go ahead for assigning charge of vice-chancellors (VCs), four public sector universities of the province will be without VCs—regular or acting.

These universities are Government College University (GCU) Lahore, the University of Education (UOE) Lahore, Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) Rawalpindi and Government Sadiq College Women University, Bahawalpur.

GCU Lahore will be operating without VC from Tuesday (today) while the remaining three from Wednesday (tomorrow) if the government fails to assign the charge to someone in the meanwhile.

Monday was the last working day for Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah as the Vice Chancellor of the GCU Lahore. The last working day of Prof Dr Rauf-i-Azam as VC UOE Lahore, Prof Dr Samina Amin Qadir as VC of the FJWU and Prof Dr Talat Afza as VC Government Sadiq College Women University, Bahawalpur will be Tuesday (today).

Sources in the HED said the department had recently moved a summary to the Law Department for advice as the department had suggested handing over acting/additional charge of these universities to individuals outside these varsities.

For GCU the department had proposed the name of Prof Dr Mansoor Sarwar, the recently appointed VC of the UET Lahore while forthe UOE Lahore the department had proposed the name of Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar, VC of the Punjab University.

It is pertinent to mention here that there is strong resentment among the faculty members of the universities against assigning of acting/additional charge of the VCs to, what they term, the ‘outsiders’.

GCU Academic Staff Association (ASA) had strongly reacted to the proposed stopgap arrangement for the university and had demanded the government to assign the acting charge to either senior most faculty member from within the university or to the then regular VC Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah for smooth functioning of the varsity.

When contacted HED Additional Secretary (Academic) Tariq Hameed Bhatti said the department was waiting for advice from the Law Department and would proceed accordingly.