PESHAWAR: The higher education department on Wednesday notified appointment of five vice-chancellors of public sector universities for a period of three years.

Officials said that higher education department withheld the appointment order of the sixth vice-chancellor as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, who is chancellor of the public sector universities, had made observations over his qualification despite approving his name as vice-chancellor.

Prof Mohammad Idrees, the director of centre for applied molecular biology, University of Punjab, has been appointed vice-chancellor of Hazara University Mansehra.

Prof Iftikhar Ahmed, chairman of department of physics, University of Malakand, has been appointed vice-chancellor of Abbottabad University of Science and Technology and Prof Ghazala Yasmin of College of Home Economics, University of Peshawar, vice-chancellor of Women University, Mardan.

Prof Khanzadi Fatima Khattak of Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan, has been appointed vice-chancellor of Women University, Swabi and Prof Mohammad Sarwar, former dean of University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, has been appointed vice-chancellor of Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan.

The higher education department withheld the summary about appointment of Prof Habib Ahmed, the dean of Hazara University, Mansehra as vice-chancellor of Islamia College University, Peshawar after the chancellor’s observation.

According to sources, the chancellor has directed the department to revisit the academic qualification of Prof Habib Ahmed despite approving his name for the post of vice-chancellor.

Sources said that observation by the chancellor was not a serious issue as it could be removed easily because Prof Habib Ahmed fulfilled the criteria required for appointment of vice-chancellor under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act, 2012.

“In this connection, the summary of Mr Habib’s appointment as vice-chancellor has been sent to the provincial law department for legal opinion,” sources said. They added that Prof Habib Ahmed would be notified as vice-chancellor after the legal opinion of law department.

Sources said that response to the chancellor was a legal obligation and there would be no hurdle in appointment of Prof Habib Ahmed as vice-chancellor.

The process of took more than one year as initially it began in June 2015 to appoint vice-chancellor of two universities but it remained unsuccessful as the academic search committee failed to find appropriate candidates due to ‘tough criteria’.

The higher education department took another few months to relax the criteria by amending the law through an ordinance in February 2016. After relaxing the criteria, sources said, the department advertised nine positions of vice-chancellors in March 2016.

In the light of advertisement, 230 academicians had submitted over 800 applications for the vacant posts of vice-chancellors. Majority of the applicants had applied for more than one university.

In the initial screening, sources said, 109 candidates were considered for onward process while the remaining applicants were not fulfilling the criteria set under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act, 2012.

The academic search committee had recommended three names for each university. Of them, sources said, names for six universities were forwarded to the chancellor for approval while names for the remaining three universities didn’t sit well with the government for technical reasons.

Sources said that vacant positions of vice-chancellors at University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar, Kohat University for Science and Technology and newly-established University of Technology, Nowshera would be re-advertised along with the seven other universities soon.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2016

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