LAHORE: Governor Sardar Saleem Haider Khan recently conducted interviews for the top candidates for vice chancellors in 19 universities across the province, including both general and women’s universities.

The interviews took place two days ago at the Governor House, with candidates selected by the search committee.

Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz had previously conducted interviews with the candidates in two separate meetings. The first meeting focused on candidates for general cadre universities, while the second meeting was for candidates from women’s universities. These meetings were held last week.

For the past two and a half years, around 25 public sector universities have been operating without regular vice chancellors.

The top candidates for post of VC in different universities of the province who appeared before the governor include Prof Dr Muhammad Ali Shah, Prof Dr Naeem Ahmad Khan, Prof Dr Zubair Ghauri, Prof Dr Mumtaz Anwar, Prof Dr Hamad, Prof Dr Shahid Munir, Prof Dr Rauf-e-Azam, Prof Dr Inayat, Prof Dr Shuja and Prof Dr Akif.

The institutes include the University of the Punjab, Government College University Lahore, Government College University Faisalabad, Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Islamia University Bahawalpur, University of Gujrat, University of Education Lahore, and University of Narowal.

The top candidates for post of VC in women universities include Prof Dr Uzma Qureshi, Prof Dr Anila Kamal, Prof Dr Kanwal Amin, Prof Dr Uzma Ghazanfar, Prof Dr Bushra Mirza, Prof Dr Shazia Anjum and Prof Dr Shazia Bashir.

The universities include Women University Multan, LCWU, Women University Sialkot, Government Sadiq College Women University Bahawalpur, Government College Women University, Madina Town, Faisalabad, Home Economics University, Lahore, and Fatima Jinnah University, Rawalpindi.

Earlier, the search committee had completed interviews for the Khwaja Fareed University of Information Technology in Rahim Yar Khan and the Information Technology University in Lahore.

A senior Higher Education Department (HED) official told Dawn that the notification of the appointment of vice chancellors in all these universities would be issued on Thursday (today) or Friday (tomorrow).

He said summaries were forwarded to the Governor Secretariat.

To a query as to why the governor had interviewed the candidates who were selected by the search committee and also interviewed by the CM, he said the chancellor could call the top contenders for the VCs slots in different universities.

PU teachers: Seventeen additional Punjab University (PU) professors have been ranked among the top two per cent of researchers globally, according to an evaluation compiled by Stanford University, California, in its 7th edition.

The list, prepared by Prof John Ioannidis and his team, has the top 100,000 scientists from various academic disciplines worldwide.

The PU professors were ranked across different categories, including Information & Library Sciences, Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing, Environmental Sciences, Business & Management, Plant Biology & Botany, Energy, Optics, Chemical Engineering, Statistics & Probability, Chemical Physics, Applied Physics, and others.

PU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood congratulated the professors on their achievement and lauded their efforts in elevating the university’s global ranking.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2024