HYDERABAD, March 15: The Sindh chapter of the Federation of All-Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association demanded on Saturday removal of the vice-chancellors, who were either army men or retired bureaucrats or professors.

The meeting of the office-bearers of the federation held at Sindh University Jamshoro campus with Prof Dr Syed Inayatullah Shah in the chair said the in-service professors holding PhD degrees should be made vice-chancellors of the universities and demanded further that all the retired officers, who had been appointed to administrative posts, should also be removed to make way for the in-service senior officers.

Prof Badar Soomro (Sindh University), Dr Aqeel Ahmed, Dr Abid Hasnain, Dr Hidayatullah, Prof Gulshan Ara Sehto and Prof Mushtaq Mirani told journalists at the press club after the conclusion of the meeting that the appointment of army officers and retired professors and bureaucrats had given rise to a host of problems at the universities.

Prof Badar Soomro said that they had placed their demands before the chairman of Higher Education Commission asking him to appoint in-service senior professors of the same university as vice chancellors.

He said that the same principle should be applied to administrative posts and termed the last eight years as the darkest period.

He said that the vice-chancellor of Karachi University had been appointed for the second time, the Sindh University’s had been appointed for the third time, and those of Mehran and Sindh Agriculture University for the second time.

He said that it was the height of injustice and nepotism that a retired officer, who happened to be the brother of the caretaker chief minister of Sindh, had been appointed as pro-vice chancellor of Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam.

He regretted that the Dow Medical University had been declared out of bounds for the students of interior Sindh and said that Sindh was the only province where university professors had to obtain no-objection certificates from the governor to go abroad for studies or attend conferences. In the other universities of the country, the NoC was issued by the vice-chancellors, he said.