Malakand varsity VC convenes meeting before end of tenure

PESHAWAR: Just two days prior to the completion of his four-year tenure as vice-chancellor, Dr Gul Zaman has convened the 41st meeting of the syndicate of the University of Malakand allegedly to take revenge from the faculty members for running a protest campaign and highlighting irregularities committed during his tenure.

“The meeting of the Syndicate of University of Malakand has been rescheduled for October 23, 2021, at 10 am in the new committee room,” said notification to this effect.

The tenure of the outgoing vice-chancellor will expire on October 25.

A 24-point agenda has already been sent to the members of the syndicate.

Almost all the points of the agenda pertained to the reports against faculty members of the university against whom the vice-chancellor is committed to taking action.

The provincial government’s policy on the universities has remained very strange during the last eight years of rule of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the province.

Sometimes, they bar the vice-chancellors from taking any administrative step six months prior to completion of their tenure.

On other occasions, the government allows a vice-chancellor, against whom irregularities and financial embezzlement has been proved by a high-level inquiry committee and ratified by the university’s senate and penalty has been awarded to him, to hold and chair meeting of the top statutory and executive body of the university and take revengeful decisions against his opponents.

Meanwhile, Federation of All Pakistan Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) has expressed reservations over convening the syndicate meeting just two days before the expiry of the tenure of the vice-chancellor.

The teachers’ representative body urged the KP governor /chancellor of the public sector universities to take notice of the situation and stop holding the meeting forthwith.

In a press statement, FAPUASA office-bearers said that the university senate and a high-level provincial government have found the vice-chancellor guilty of massive irregularities, misuse of funds and authority and despite that he was convening a meeting of the syndicate to victimize those who played the role of whistleblowers.

They said FAPUASA would launch a protest campaign if the government failed to stop the meeting.