GUJRAT: The University of Gujrat (UoG) administration has formed a committee to deliberate on and ‘challenge’ the ranking system for the universities adopted by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) after decline in its position.

According to the latest ranking, the UoG has dropped down from No 19 (in 2014) to 24 (in 2015). It was at No 11 in the category of general universities in 2013.

UoG Registrar Dr Tahir Aqeel told Dawn that the vice chancellor had constituted a committee comprising two senior officials -- one of the Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) and the other of the ORIC (Office of Research Innovation and Commercialization) -- to prepare a strong case challenging the fresh ranking system of the HEC.

He said that despite improving in the numbers for ranking, the UoG had dropped in the rating since the HEC had amalgamated various kind of varsities into one category which were previously divided into three categories such as large size general, large medium and small universities.

“It is not a balanced approach of comparing the universities falling under different categories as there is no match between the Quaid-i-Azam University of Islamabad and institutions like the UoG in that the former solely offers the postgraduate and post master’s level courses based on research programmes and the latter has more than 90pc programmes for under-graduate or graduate degrees which lack in research,” he said.

He said the committee had already started its working with a maiden meeting on this matter around two weeks ago. VC Dr Ziaul Qayyum chaired the meeting that defined the task.

On the other hand, most senior faculty members of the UoG are hardly surprised at the ranking and hold the varsity administration responsible for a downward trend by not encouraging the faculty and students to do research-based projects or papers.

A senior faculty member, who spoke to this correspondent on the condition of anonymity, said research and development at the university were hardly credible. “The University vide its letter from Office of the Registrar, UOG/Reg/020/27(D) of Sept10, 2012, after approval of the Syndicate committed to pay an amount of Rs10,000 for HEC cited journal publication whilst Rs5,000 for local HEC accepted paper. But the fact is that it has not paid a penny to any researcher/faculty member,” he deplored.

“The university has been wavering for the last four years and has the lowest research budget among the public universities and that is a major reason for its decline,” he said.

Corroborating the assertions, another teacher says faculty members are doing research from other affiliated universities’ platform to get benefit and not sharing their research papers with the UoG authorities. “Such a situation demoralises a teacher who can hardly innovate and inspire his students.”

He went on to evaluate the vice chancellor’s performance after assuming office more than one year ago, saying he (VC) failed to hold any national or international conference. High workload on faculty, student to teacher ratio, lower salaries and many other issues are responsible for decline in employees’ efficiency and ranking, he added.

In the last 15 months, he said, the VC held one meeting with the faculty though a meeting should be held after every semester.

The latest ranking shows many new universities such as Abdul Wali Khan University of Mardan and University of Science and Technology of Bannu are better ranked than the UoG which also shows that education in KP is improving.

The University of Sargodha and Ripha International University were established around the time the UoG came into being but they too are ahead of it in ranking as well as quality.

The HEC categorises the ranking system on the basis of Quality Assurance, Teaching Quality, Research, Finance and Facilities, and Social Integration/Community Development.

Registrar Dr Aqeel said the incentive pledged for the research papers in September 2012 could not be implemented so far as the varsity had started devising the research policy and a committee comprising six deans was reviewing the policy the draft of which would again be presented before the Syndicate for approval.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2016