THE overall performance of academic institutions in Sindh is not up to the mark. According to the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for 2023, not even a single university in the province was able to make the cut. This is a true reflection of the state of affairs.

In northern Sindh, Shah Abdul Latif University (SALU) in Khairpur is the largest university in terms of admissions and faculty. The university has been lagging behind two years in conducting annual examinations of affiliated colleges.

The university has changed the proposed schedule of these annual examinations six times. Actually, these examinations were to be held in 2021.

Still, there seems to be no chance of examinations being conducted.

On the one hand, the university charges exorbitant fee from the poverty-stricken students, who cannot afford higher education in private universities, while, on the other, the university postpones its examinations by citing one reason or the other.

There is also a tug-of-war with the Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA) on the core issue of payment of bills. The university administration has to pay all the arrears owed to professors and lecturers as compensation for the assessment of answer sheets and conducting the practical examinations in the previous years.

It is shocking that the university has allegedly declared hundreds of students either ‘fail’ or ‘absent’ in the results announced against some examinations even though students’ signatures are available on the relevant sheets.

There is a need to set things right in the university administration to help it keep up with its counterparts elsewhere in the country. The whole administration needs to be inducted on merit, and political interference must be stopped forthwith.

Ali Sikandar Chachar
Ghotki

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2022