October 10, 2006	Tuesday	Ramazan 16, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 9: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has agreed to relax the criteria for selection on Tenure Track System (TTS) for the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) faculty, a move to accommodate social sciences teachers with mediocre academic record, official sources told Dawn.

Under the recently introduced HEC rating system for research journals, teachers whose research work have appeared in three- and four-star journals will be allowed to apply for the TTS, a new service structure whereby a teacher would be able to draw a salary package up to Rs1,75000.

However, according to university sources, the HEC has relaxed the selection criteria, and now teachers with research work published in two-star journals have also been allowed to apply for the system.

The criteria has been relaxed only for social sciences teachers, whereas natural sciences teachers have to fulfil the three- and four-star journal precondition.

The HEC has developed a comprehensive criteria for the evaluation of archival, academic and research journals of international repute published within the country. These criteria have been extensively debated with all stakeholders and were approved by the commission.

The next step has been the application of these approved criteria for the selection of journals. Now rather than having a binary mechanism for approval of journals, a four-star rating system has been devised.

Following a meeting of nearly 70 experts in 18 disciplines at the HEC in August, over 125 journals published in the country were evaluated against the approved criteria. The two-star journals meet all HEC journal criteria except review of each paper by at least one expert from an industrially or academically advanced country in the respective discipline. Whereas, the three- and four-star journals do have expert review from advanced countries.

There is a clear division among the university teachers: one group favouring the relaxation and the other sticking to the original criteria to improve teaching standards in the country, the sources said.

Talking to Dawn, the president of the QAU Academic Staff Association said the relaxation was only for social scientists for two years.

On the other hand, natural sciences teachers said it was a discrimination against them on part of HEC, and the relaxation should have been extended to both the social sciences and natural sciences teachers.