LAHORE, Aug 15: The Punjab University’s College of Information Technology (PUCIT) has sacked two regular and 11 visiting faculty members during the last one-and-a-half years.

The university had introduced the system of evaluation of teachers’ performance by students about two years ago. The college management said the teachers had been fired primarily because of the students’ evaluation.

“The students evaluate performance of their teachers at the end of every semester. The management analyzes the evaluation independently and, if found true, takes action in its light. In some cases the students evaluation report was found false,” the college management said.

However, PUCIT sources said those who were sacked either fell victim to favouritism or were found guilty of violation of discipline.

They claimed that in some other affiliated colleges, the evaluation reports were against teachers but no action was taken against them.

One of the regular teachers was the nephew of the university’s registrar. Mr Sohail Ahmad was removed from service because, what sources claimed, he was teaching degree classes while holding a BSc degree in Management of Info System from the US.

The registrar was not available for comments.

They said Mr Sohail was appointed in violation of pay scale statutes of 1975 for university teachers. Under the law a first class masters/BSc Engg degree holder can be appointed as a lecturer. A post-graduate degree holder or PhD with two years’ teaching experience could be appointed as an assistant professor.

The qualification for the post of associate professor is post-graduation and PhD with 10 years’ experience, and for the professor, post-graduation and PhD with 15 years experience.

The University Grant Commission (UGC) could be consulted in case of any difficulty in determining the equivalence of degrees and experience in technical and professional subjects.

The university management, however, claimed that the bachelor’s degree from a foreign university could be considered equivalent to the masters degree from a Pakistani university.

Some of the teachers have mentioned the degrees on the college prospectus which they have yet to complete.

Principal Dr Javed Sikander said a new prospectus would soon be published in which such ‘mistakes’ would be repeated. A committee comprising vice-chancellor, college principal and its three senior staffers has been authorized to hire or fire teachers in the PUCIT.

At present, the PUCIT has 44 teachers. Of them only 12 are regular staffers. Among the regular staffers four are PhDs, none in computer sciences. The PhDs are electronics, mathematics and artificial intelligence. All faculty members have been appointed on two-year contract.

The PUCIT has been facing faculty crisis since its first principal was suspended on the charges of financial irregularities.

The PUCIT students are not satisfied with the teaching standards of teachers. They said constant changes in faculty affected their studies.

They said they also suspected the market value of a degree from the PUCIT.

They said one MSc class comprised 80 students whereas the strength of the BSc class was 100. According to the UGC’s criteria, the ratio in a class must not be more than one teacher for 20 students.