PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman has directed the vice-chancellors of all the public sector universities to refrain from exerting political pressure on him for making decision in their personal interests.

The governor, who is also chancellor of the public sector universities in the province, warned the VCs to refrain forthwith from such acts.

He said that anyone found defying those directives would be strictly proceeded against without exception under relevant laws and rules, according to a letter issued to all VCs here on Sunday.

“The competent authority (governor) has taken a very serious notice of the fact that some vice-chancellors are approaching different politicians and are trying to exert political pressure upon the competent authority with a view to influence decision making in their personal interests,” states the letter.

Writes letter to heads of public sector universities

These acts of VCs are not only tantamount to misconduct on their part being government servants under laws and rules but also cause deviation of their attention from the academic and administrative activities causing huge loss to the students and academic standards of their respective educational institutions, it says.

When asked about the reasons of issuing the letter to all the VCs, authorities in the higher education department showed ignorance about exerting political pressure on the chancellor for taking decision of their choice.

However, they said that someone might have approached the governor for taking favours in the ongoing appointment process in the seven public sector universities.

A couple of days ago, higher education department forwarded a summary of shortlisted candidate to the chief minister for the appointment of vice-chancellors to seven public sector universities in the province.

“It is a tragedy that vice-chancellors and academicians generally approach influential leaders of the ruling party for taking favours in different matters,” the vice-chancellor of a public sector universities told Dawn while commenting on the letter of the governor.

He said that the letter was an embarrassment for the VCs, who were heading higher educational institutions in the province. “It will convey a very bad message to the students, who will think about the acts of the heads of their universities,” he added.

He said that all VCs were not the same rather some of them might have been approaching the politicians for exerting pressure on the governor for taking decision of their choice.

“Instead of issuing letter to all VCs of state-run universities, the chancellor should have issued letter of displeasure as punishment to those VCs, who are putting political pressure on him,” said the vice-chancellor.

He said that if the governor had courage to issue letter of displeasure to a few of the VCs then rest of them would not dare to contact the chancellor through political leaders for seeking favours.

He said that instead of punishing those VCs, who were using political channels for putting pressure on the chancellor, the governor issued a general letter to all the VCs.

“The governor is the prime state functionary and he should be very much clear in dealing with the affairs of the universities instead of issuing vague letters to all and sundry,” he added.

The vice-chancellor said that the chancellor was hesitant to annoy those, who were exerting pressure on him, and instead blamed all VCs. He added that a vice-chancellor was leading a university and the letter would not convey a good message to the people and students.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2021