December 13, 2006	Wednesday	Ziqa'ad 21, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: The Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) faculty is divided on the issue of one-grade promotion, with majority seeking implementation of the decision across the board.

The university syndicate is meeting on December 16 to take final decision in this regard, university sources told Dawn.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had announced one-grade promotion for the faculties of the universities on Salam Teachers Day observed on October 6.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) was of the view that some criteria must be followed for promotion of the university teachers, while the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association wanted that the decision be implemented across the board.

However, it was left up to the syndicates of the respective universities to decide what course of action they wanted to adopt.

Appreciating the prime minister’s decision, a senior teacher of the QAU suggested that there must be some criteria for the promotion of teachers, otherwise, it would promote mediocrity.

“Throughout the world the university teachers are promoted on the basis of their performance, the quality of research and number of PhD or M. Phil students they are supervising,” he said.

Under the revised service structure, a BPS-17 lecturer would be promoted to BPS-18, an assistant professor to BPS-19, an associate professor to BPS-20 and a professor to BPS-21.

A lecturer must have first class master’s degree in the relevant field with no third division in his/her academic career for promotion.

An associate professor must have eight publications to his/her name with at least two publications published in the last two years in the HEC-recognised international journals.

A professor must have 12 publications to his/her name with at least five publications carried by the internationally abstracted journals recognized by the HEC.

The newly elected President of the Academic Staff Association (ASA) of the QAU, Dr Zulfiqar Ahmad, says he would try his best to get the decision of one-grade promotion implemented across the board.

However, the sources said that it was unlikely, because some of the university teachers fulfilling the criteria wanted that there must be some distinction between those actively involved in research and the rest of the lot.