​SAHIWAL: Prof Dr Rauf-i-Azam, vice chancellor of the University of Education, Lahore, assumed additional charge of the University of Sahiwal VC on Thursday.

He has been granted this additional charge for six months by the governor.

Dr Azam already holds additional charge of VC of the newly-established University of Okara; he is now VC of three universities.

Universities of Okara and Sahiwal were sub-campuses of the University of Education, Lahore, and Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, respectively.

In 2015, both sub-campuses had been declared autonomous universities by the Punjab Assembly. Although, the gazette notification for both varsities was released by the Punjab government in 2015, the higher education department and higher education commission failed to appoint VCs for both these varsities. Resultantly, they were administratively and financially run for a year by their mother institutions: UoE and BZU.

There was a constant public pressure seeking new VCs for both universities. Therefore, Dr Azam was given additional charge of the VC of Okara university and last week awarded another additional charge of the UoS VC.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2016