KARACHI: A meeting of the syndicate of Karachi University (KU) held on Friday after a gap of more than four months saw senior teachers raising serious reservations over the recently held selection boards and the “distorted minutes” of the last meeting presented for approval before the forum.

Sources said the two-hour meeting could only take up a few items of the 300-page agenda that included a list of actions taken by the vice chancellor over the year.

The teachers, they said, objected to the minutes of the last meeting of the forum, describing it as flawed and called for corrections.

During the last meeting held in November, the sources said, the forum led by the vice chancellor approved the budget without providing a copy of the complete document to its members prior to the meeting and time to review it.

The sources said the 10-page summary given to the members during the meeting didn’t reflect the actual financial situation.

“The budget was approved in haste on the ground that the Sindh government would be approving Rs1 billion budget for the university. But there was no mention of this amount in the minutes of the last meeting,” shared senior KU teacher Dr Riaz Ahmed, also member of the university syndicate.

According to him, when the members raised their voice over the matter, the vice chancellor told them that no such amount was mentioned in the last meeting.

“We also raised serious concern over the selection boards. Many qualified internal and external candidates are being deprived of promotions and appointments because of the flawed selection process adopted by the KU administration,” he said, adding that the vice chancellor refused to entertain those complaints.

He also criticised the vice chancellor for not calling the syndicate meeting on a monthly basis and taking administrative decisions without approval from the statutory body.

The way the university was being run would only aggravate the crisis it was already facing, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2024