HYDERABAD, Sept 5: The executive council, Sindh Agriculture University Teachers Association, Tando Jam, have expressed grave concern over the decrease in admissions in the university, whereas the number of students enrolling in other universities was increasing with every passing year.

The executive council said this at a meeting held at the university campus on Thursday.

Ali Nawaz Leghari, the president, Sindh Agriculture University Teachers Association, presided over the meeting.

The council said that the wrong and negative policies of the vice-chancellor were responsible for this state of affairs.

It called upon the higher authorities to take serious notice of the situation where the vice-chancellor had not even bothered to ask the students of first year to attend classes although they had deposited their fees four months back.

The council was informed of the outcome of the meetings of senior office bearers of the Sindh Agriculture University Teachers Association with the vice-chancellor on this issue, which yielded no result.

The meeting observed that the academic process of all the batches could be further delayed on the lame excuse of the on-going supplementary examinations, which could have been conducted in the evening.

The council called upon the vice-chancellor to convene a special meeting of the university syndicate to discuss all the problems so that “the future of this unfortunate university could be saved”.

It observed that the budgeting of the university was done without any legal formalities “so much so that even the honourable syndicate has not been provided the exact and true figures with regards to the annual account statement for the past several years”.

The meeting pointed out that the agro-information technology centre was one of the mega projects allowed by the federal government through the Higher Education Commission but it had not got a well-qualified professor of the said discipline although many competent persons were available.

Likewise, the meeting noted that the appointments of academic staff had not been made on the basis of merit.

It alleged that operators, technicians and other posts were being filled without advertisements and even diploma holders in computer science were teaching undergraduates.

The council demanded that the chairman, Higher Education Commission, and other higher authorities conduct a detailed inquiry into the appointments made so far as well as probe into the expenditure of the centre, including the generators purchased for the centre.

The council strongly objected to the deduction of Rs4 per student under the orders of the controller of examinations, Commander (retd) Ali Murad Goraho, and demanded that the orders of making these deductions should be withdrawn forthwith.

The meeting strongly protested against the delay in the grant of study leave for PhD on one or the other pretext and called upon the higher authorities to intervene in the matter and issue clear instructions to the vice-chancellor in this regard.

It strongly objected to the attitude of the resident auditor and warned that if he did not mend his ways the matter would be referred to the anti-corruption department.