KOHAT: The post of vice-chancellor of the Kohat University of Science and Technology (KUST) has been lying vacant for the last 18 months, badly hampering the routine work of the varsity.

Sources told Dawn on Monday that several qualified people were available in Kohat, who could be appointed as VC, but the government was delaying the appointment for unknown reasons.

After the removal of vice-chancellor Nasir Jamal Kahttak in 2014, no permanent VC has been appointed to the post.

A senior professor, who served as controller of examinations at Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Kohat, and chairman Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Malakand, while talking to Dawn regretted that the government could not find a qualified person to be appointed as the vice chancellor. This showed the inefficiency of the Higher Education Commission, he added.

He said the PTI-led government claimed that the education topped its priority list, but its failure to appoint a permanent VC to KUST had badly hampered the university affairs.

The incumbent VC, Fida Younis Khattak, a senior dean, could not handle the affairs of the university, the sources said, adding once a strike called by class-IV employees and students continued for an entire month, but he (Fida Younis) was reluctant to talk to them. Later, MPAs had to intervene to resolve the issue.

Similarly, the sources said the posts of chairman and controller of examinations were being run by acting officials.

Meanwhile, officials said that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan would visit the university to deliver a lecture on the occasion of the Pakistan Day on Wednesday.

They said MNA Shehryar Afridi, MPA and chairman of the district advisory development committee, Ziaullah Bangash, deputy commissioner Zahir Mohmand and district police officer visited the university on Monday to oversee the arrangements in that regard.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2016