ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: President Gen Pervez Musharraf, in his capacity as chancellor of the federal public sector universities, has approved the revised procedure for appointments of vice- chancellors, said an official statement on Friday.

The statement issued by the Higher Education Commission said it had been decided that in the future a Vice Chancellors Search Committee would be constituted. The commission would forward names of proposed members of the committee to the chancellor.

Once the members of the committee are approved by the chancellor, the commission will advertise the positions of the vice chancellors in newspapers. The search committee will then shortlist and interview the applicants and forward three names to the chancellor for consideration.

The chancellor may appoint any of the proposed persons or ask for a fresh recommendation from the search committee. This revised procedure will ensure that vice-chancellors are competent administrators, scholars of international repute, and who can provide the much needed academic leadership in public sector universities, the statement said.

Earlier, the federal education minister, being the pro vice- chancellor of the federal public sector universities, recommended the name of a vice-chancellor. Requesting anonymity, a senior professor of the Quaid-i-Azam University told Dawn that the move would hardly make any difference.

There is no dearth of qualified educationists in the country, and if the government is really interested in selecting worthy persons as vice-chancellors then it is very much possible under the previous selection procedure, he argued.