KARACHI, Aug 24: Academic activities will be suspended at the Federal Urdu University for Arts, Science and Technology (Fuuast) on Saturday when a crucial senate meeting will be held to discuss a letter referred by the office of the varsity’s chancellor (the president of Pakistan).

Though no reason has been cited for the university’s closure in a press release issued by the registrar office which states that both Fuuast campuses (Gulshan and Abdul Haq) will remain closed on Saturday, the administrative measure, according to sources, has been taken to handle fallout of the protest announced by teachers for the same day.

No university official was available for comments. Earlier, university teachers had warned that they might be forced to close the university if a caretaker set-up was introduced at the university to fill in the administrative vacuum created in the absence of a full-time vice chancellor.

Currently, Prof Dr Mohammad Qaiser, who was earlier heading the Urdu University, is running both Fuuast and Karachi University as vice chancellor.

The Sindh governor, chancellor of all public sector universities in the province, while appointing him vice chancellor of the KU in February this year allowed him to continue to lead the Urdu University till another candidate is found for the post.

The sources said that the university senate was meeting on a one-point agenda and that was to prepare recommendation/s for the chancellor after discussing the letter forwarded by him.

The senate members, they said, could suggest to the chancellor to appoint an acting VC for the university or to ignore the objections raised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman in his letter to the chancellor (who then forwarded it to the university senate) and appoint a full-time VC from the list of three candidates already approved by the university senate.The HEC chairman had raised objections against the three candidates proposed for the post of VC and had stated in his letter that they were not competent.

The university senate members include Prof Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui, Dr Nazeer Ahmed Sangi (Allama Iqbal Open University VC), Dr A.Q.Mughal (Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam VC), Dr Naushad Sheikh (principal secretary to the governor), Dr Mohammad Ashraf (dean faculty of science, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad), Dr Masuma Hassan, Seema Naz Siddiqui and Nasir Abbas.

Meanwhile, teachers representing two university campuses in Karachi held a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Friday and warned that they would not accept anything short of their demand of having a full-time VC from the list of three candidates already approved by the university senate.

“Even the president has no reason to order a repeat of the selection process. There is a conspiracy going on against the university that we will foil with full force,” observed Prof Dr Iftikhar Ahmed Tahiri, the general secretary of the university teachers’ society (Gulshan campus).

The teachers criticised the delay in the appointment of a VC and deplored that an educational matter, which should have been attended to on a priority basis, was being continuously ignored.

“We all are witness to the seven-month-long process and now when we were expecting the appointment of a vice chancellor, the HEC chairman has made the matter more complicated by raising objections against the candidates,” said Prof Dr Javed Iqbal, the president of the teachers’ society.

A search committee worked for six months in order to find a suitable person to head the university and received 149 applications. Of them, 121 were found eligible for interviews and at a later stage it chose four candidates and sent their names to the university senate, which decided to forward three names to the chancellor. The entire procedure, the teachers said, was conducted according to the HEC’ rules and regulations and HEC chairman Dr Javed Leghari raised no objection at any level.

“In fact, he congratulated the teacher representatives on the senate at the end of its session held on July 29,” said Prof Iqbal, adding that it was beyond common understanding that the HEC chairman wrote a letter to the president and expressed his reservations on the candidates’ credentials on July 30. The letter, they said, was full of contradictions and contained serious mistakes. For instance, the HEC chairman had given different marks to the candidates, though no marks were given to any candidate in the last senate session and the decision to select three candidates was taken with the help of voting.

“We demand that the president appoint a full-time vice chancellor from the list of three candidates already approved by the university senate. All teachers representing the three campuses of the university have no reservation on any name and would be happy to work with any one of them,” Dr Syed Tahir Ali, another teacher representative, said.