SWABI: Key administrative positions in the Women University Swabi (WUS) have long been lying vacant, affecting the functioning of the varsity, sources have revealed.

Talking to Dawn here, they said posts of registrar, additional registrar, director academics, director office of research, innovation and commercialisation, director quality enhancement cell and treasurer remained vacant, forcing the vice-chancellor to run these departments with junior teachers on makeshift basis.

They said Vice-Chancellor Prof Shahana Urooj Kazmi, whose tenure was going to end in first week of March, had opened new departments and hired over 200 teachers during her tenure, but all these appointments were on ad hoc/contract basis.

They said the varsity didn’t have regular teachers to be appointed either as vice-chancellor or pro-vice-chancellor.

They said Prof Kazmi had also requested Governor Ghulam Ali, who is the chancellor of WUS, for an extension in her tenure, so that she could complete the process of employees’ regularisation.

The sources disclosed that the higher education department had moved a summary to appoint Prof Nasir Jamal Khattak, Vice-Chancellor University of Swabi (UoS), as the acting VC of WUS. They said this would be the third time that a VC from outside WUS would be appointed due to non-availability of regular teachers in the university.

They said the WUS’s faculty of allied health sciences also faced crisis as it hadn’t yet sough affiliation or accreditation of the Khyber Medical University, Peshawar, as mandated by the HEC and the provincial government, which would result in non-attestation of degrees of students.

When contacted, VC Kazmi said a university couldn’t seek affiliation of any programme with another varsity.

BAN SOUGHT: Anjuman-i-Tajiran has demanded of the district administration to ban protest demonstrations at Karnal Sher Khan Chowk in Swabi city.

A delegation led by the body’s president Mohammad Ali met deputy commissioner Furqan Ashraf the other day, informing him that demonstrations at the main thoroughfare caused great financial hardships to traders.

They asked Mr Ashraf to ensure no political party or other entity held demonstrations at the Chowk in future as they caused blockage of roads and disrupted routine business activity.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2023