For last two months, Fuuast has had no VC — and it’s all messy

Despite the passage of over two months since the Islamabad High Court verdict set aside the appointment of Prof Dr Altaf Hussain as vice chancellor of the Federal Urdu University of Arts,

Science, and Technology (Fuuast), the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training has yet to appoint a permanent VC.

The non-appointment of VC has adversely affected the administrative affairs in the institution. If the notification to appoint an acting VC is further delayed, the new academic year of 2019-2020 may not start on time.

Likewise, the process of endorsement of new admissions and the affairs of affiliation with other institutions will be disturbed, while the teaching-term of the ongoing semester will be further reduced.

“No official has been tasked to lead the institution. This situation is causing severe administrative and academic crisis with every passing day,” said Fuuast senator Assistant Prof Dr Irfan Aziz while talking to The News. “The ministry has neither constituted a search committee nor completed the process to prepare terms of references for the appointment of new vice-chancellors.”

He said the varsity had been running without an institutional head since October 23, 2019 and “this is because of the bureaucratic hurdles unnecessarily involved between the university and its chancellor office”.

He said the Fuuast Senate held a meeting on December 10, 2019 to decide an interim setup for running the Fuuast’s administrative affairs. The meeting was chaired by President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi, who is also the chancellor of federal varsities and degree-awarding institutions.

During the meeting, the Fuuast senators had recommended the name of the senior-most faculty member, Professor Dr Arif Zubair, as acting vice chancellor for a period of six months. The chancellor had also allowed Prof Zubair as acting vice chancellor of the Fuuast. The body had further decided to form a search committee for the appointment of a permanent vice chancellor. In this connection, the Fuuast senate had formed a three-member subcommittee to prepare terms of references within 15 days for the search committee.

Dr Irfan said the president had taken notice of the matters and directed the relevant authorities to carry out the process of issuing a notification of the interim setup on the position. But to one’s surprise, despite the Senate’s decisions and in light of the directions of the country’s highest office, no notification has been issued so far.

He said the varsity was suffering delayed tactics amid the start of new academic year and admission session while graduates could not receive degrees, medical facilities had been closed because of non-payment, and day-today affairs at the university had been practically stalled.

The new academic session also needs appointments of a big number of cooperative teachers for various departments. The number goes up to 800 in total. He demanded of the President of Pakistan to take notice of the situation.