LAHORE: Six of the eight research chairs at the Government College University (GCU) here have been lying vacant for 12 years, it was learnt.

This anomaly surfaced during the maiden meeting of GCU’s newly appointed Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Hassan Amir Shah with the university’s academic and administrative heads over the weekend, a source told Dawn on Monday.

The six research chairs were established in 2003-4 in the names of poet Allama Iqbal, GCU founder principal Prof Dr G.W. Leitner, Hazart Ali Hajveri (Data Ganj Bakhsh), eminent writer Prof Ashfaq Ahmad, Dr Mehboobul Haq and Dr Sultan Ahmad in the departments of philosophy, history, Persian, Urdu, economics and biological sciences.

However, no appointments could be made against these chairs in the last 12 years. Strangely, they had not even been advertised for eight years. Funds were allocated for them every year, but eventually lapsed due to non-utilisation.

No appointment on six out of eight chairs for 12 years

Prof Dr Khalid Aftab, founding vice chancellor of GCU, had worked for creating the abovementioned six chairs in the third and sixth meeting of the university’ syndicate held on July 10, 2003, and Dec 18, 2004. But he could not find anyone suitable for any of these chairs.

Besides the six chairs, the federal government had established a chair in the physics department in 1999 and named it after the only Nobel Laureate of Pakistan, Dr Abdus Salam, who was a student (1942-46) and a faculty member (1951-54) here. Eminent Physicist Dr G Murtaza was appointed professor on this chair in March 2000. However, now this chair was also lying vacant for over a year.

The eighth, Rafi Chair, was occupied by Prof Dr Zakaray Butt in the GCU Centre for Advanced Studies in Physics.

A senior faculty member of GCU told Dawn the new vice chancellor was visibly annoyed to know about the vacant chairs and called it a “murder of research”.

“Prof Dr Shah has been appointed in the GCU at a time when it is facing a dearth of senior faculty and there is not a single professor in most of the departments and assistant professors have filled the gap for now. And, there is only one dean for four facilities: science and technology, arts and social sciences, languages, Islamic and oriental learning and engineering. The term of this only dean, Prof Dr Islamullah Khan, is also ending this month after which GCU is mostly likely going to be dean-less,” said the senior faculty member while seeking anonymity.

The senior teacher said GCU did not have a panel of three professors in three of its four faculties to forward to the governor for appointment of dean.

Prof Shah said the key to achieving the uphill task of revamping the academic landscape of Pakistan was academia.

“I wish that the best research scholars, men of letters and seasoned professionals pertaining to different fields of human activity converge in the GCU to enrich students’ learning experience,” he added.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2015

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