September 12, 2003	Friday	Rajab 14, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 11: The faculty members of the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) have expressed their reservations about the Higher Education Commission (HEC) plan to hire foreign teachers at attractive salary packages, Dawn has learnt.

The Commission has recently announced a five-year scheme under which around 300 PhDs will be engaged every year to improve teaching standards in the public sector universities. In this regard, Rs3.5 billion have been earmarked. Under the plan, attractive salary structures - not less that Rs100,000 per month - would be offered to the teachers.

Talking to Dawn, a number of senior professors at the university expressed their apprehensions about the success of the scheme.

A senior professor confided to this reporter that at present he was drawing Rs40,000 per month. “I have a standing offer of more than Rs100,000 per month from an Islamabad-based private university and would definitely go over there for a better life,” he said.

He said over the last five to ten years a majority of the PhDs at the university had gone abroad in search of better future, while those staying back taught in the private sector universities on part time basis, which in contrast to the government-run universities offered them a handsome salary package.

He said the PhDs serving at the QAU were foreign qualified and teaching with a cause but instead of recognising their services, the Commission was interested in engaging foreign teachers.

Dr Abid Barki, head of Economics Department, and Dr Rasul Bakhsh Rais, Director Area Study Centre of the QAU, have only recently joined Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) only because of an attractive salary package, he said.

A women professor said if at all the Commission managed to bring in teachers from abroad, only the second string of teachers would opt for the scheme.

Being critical of the research facilities available at the state-run universities, she said, “We have out-dated labs and a library and an entirely unfriendly teaching atmosphere at the university.”

Another teacher told this reporter that the country’s leadership had developed a tendency for looking outside for help instead of putting own house in order.

It may be added here that under the controversial Model University Ordinance (MOU), a tenure track service structure was offered that was rejected by the university teachers associations throughout the country.

Another teacher was of the view that slowly and steadily the government was moving towards corporatization of public sector universities on the lines of Government College University, Lahore, where education for a middle class student had become impossible.

The faculty members of the QAU suggested that the Commission should come up with some long-term policy in this regard.