ISLAMABAD: The meeting of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) will be held in Saudi Arabia on December 23.

According to a document seen by Dawn, the BoT meeting will be held at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University Riyadh under the chairmanship of Prof Dr Ahmad Ibn Salem Al-Ameri, the rector of the university.

He will chair the meeting as the pro-rector of IIUI.

According to the ordinance of IIUI, the president of Pakistan being chancellor of the university is supposed to chair the meeting.

However, sources said President Asif Ali Zardari had authorised the pro-rector to chair the meeting; therefore, it is being held in Saudi Arabia.

The sources said there were certain chances that the BoT will recommend the name of Saudi educationist Dr Ahmad bin Saad Al Ahmad, assistant professor of physiology at Al Imam University Riyadh, for the post of the IIUI president.

In 2020, the BoT had decided that in future the president of the IIUI will be appointed through a competitive process like other Pakistani universities.

The BoT had directed the university’s board of governors (BoG) to make rules and regulations for this purpose. Surprisingly, the IIUI BoG did not make the new rules during the last four years and in July this year the tenure of the IIUI president, Saudi educationist Hathal Homoud Alotaibi, expired.

Since then, the university is being run by the interim president.

Sources said that a few days ago BOG of university had made regulations for appointment of President IIUI on pattern of other public sector universities and these regulations would be presented before the BoT for consideration.

The sources said in the upcoming meeting of BoT, there are certain chances that the Saudi educationist will be recommended for the post and the

IIUI will be directed to go for the appointment through a competitive process in future.

The Supreme Court recently removed IIUI Rector Dr Samina Malik and last month HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed took the additional charge of the rector.

Currently, both the president and rector offices are being run through ad hoc arrangements.

IIUI is one of the leading public sector universities of the country.

The Supreme Court was recently told that the university receives Rs2.1 billion funding from the federal government besides collecting fees from students in addition to Rs600 million from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

IIUI officials said if the BoT was interested in hiring a foreign educationist as the president IIUI, it should also take steps for a bailout package for the university as its aggregate liability has increased to over Rs14 billion.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2024