October 20, 2008	Monday	Shawwal 20, 1429

HYDERABAD, Oct 19: The All Sindh Universities Employees Federation at a meeting at the Sindh Agriculture University has rejected any inquiry against SAU Vice-Chancellor Dr Bashir Shaikh as long as he remains the VC and decided to stage a long march from Jamshoro railway crossing to Sindh Governor House, Karachi, on November 5.

The chairman of the federation, Raza Mohammad Durrani, presided over the meeting which was attended by representatives of Sindh, Mehran, Liaquat, Shah Latif, Quaid-i-Awam and Agriculture universities.

The meeting resolved to boycott the proceedings of the inquiry committee if the vice chancellor was not removed. The meeting decided to hold protest demonstrations in all the universities on daily basis and to stage a major protest demonstration outside Hyderabad Press Club on Friday.

Speaking on the occasion, the chairman of the federation appealed to the Sindh governor to treat the universities of interior Sindh at par with the universities of Karachi.

Meanwhile, the Forum for Restoration of Responsible Governance in Universities and Restoration of Academic Standard in Sindh has welcomed an inquiry ordered by the Sindh governor in financial and administrative affairs of the Sindh Agriculture University and said that it was inevitable and will leave a positive impression that vice- chancellors do not enjoy immunity.

In a statement, the chairman of the forum, Professor Amir Ali Kadri, said that the enquiry will surely set the future course of the SAU that has suffered a lot during the tenure of its present vice chancellor Dr Bashir Shaikh due to his ill-planned and misconceived policies formulated mostly by his corrupt sons and inefficient team members.

As articulated in its vision paper, the university was required to continue to develop the niche it had created over the past decades of college life, but it has not been done, he said.

So much so that the university has not been able to create a good impact in the province as it has not produced good scientists to provide guidelines to growers for better return or to inform them about latest research and new technologies, he said.

Professor Kadri, also a former dean of the university, said that Dr Shaikh does not possess the required mind to appreciate the importance of extension services properly with a regional perspective without losing track of national and global contexts.

In other under-developed countries, he said, the spirit of volunteerism has been nurtured in the universities so as to render extension service by faculty and students to groups and institutions based in the region.

The forum expects that the enquiry would be conducted at Tandojam campus so as to provide facility to all concerned quarters/sections interested to appear before the enquiry committee, he said.

It is also expected that the inquiry would be conducted strictly according to the established procedure, rules and regulations as laid down in the statutes, Professor Kadri said and added that it will help the committee to arrive at the valid and rightful conclusion.

This university, he said, needs appropriate efforts to put its academic life on proper lines, which is in a very shabby condition. It is all due to the fact that status of the meaningful statutory bodies, such as syndicate and academic council, has been deliberately relegated to that of a rubber stamp, Professor Kadri said.

As such, the said important bodies could not play their useful and legitimate role because the nominations of syndicate were not extended on bonafide grounds, he said and added that this situation needs to be resolved positively by the higher authorities. admission test: The University of Sindh on Sunday conducted test for admission to its master’s degree programme at several disciplines of the university.

The test was conducted at 48 examination centres set up in the Faculty of Arts, Allama I.I. Kazi Campus in which a total of 2,099 candidates took part.

The university plied special buses from Hyderabad to Jamshoro to provide pick and drop facility to the candidates.