ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has directed all public and private sector universities to ensure the implementation of the new qualification criteria for the appointment of lecturers and assistant professors.

Under the new criteria, the minimum qualification for the appointment of a lecturer would be an MPhil, MS or an equivalent degree (18 years) or a master’s degree from a foreign university.

For the hiring of an assistant professor, the candidate should be a PhD degree holder. The universities have been given one year - up to January 2018 - to ensure the recruitment of the PhD degree holders as assistant professors. For the implementation of the new qualification for lecturers, the deadline is June 30, 2017.

HEC says MPhil and PhD will be the minimum qualification for hiring of lecturers and assistant professors, respectively

In a letter dated January 26, which was recently circulated to the universities, the HEC said those institutions which were yet to raise the qualifications for the appointment of lecturers should ensure the implementation of the commission’s decision by June 30.

“The review of statistics of PhD faculty and scholars, especially in remote institutions and districts or less-developed areas, be submitted to the commission for a review and decision,” the letter added.

In 2012, the HEC decided to raise the qualifications of lectures and assistant professors and fixed Jan 1, 2015, as the deadline for the appointment of lecturers with the new criteria and Jan 1, 2016, for the appointment of assistant professors.

However, sources said a large number of universities could not implement the decision. The commission too did not take action against the universities which failed to implement the decision. The sources said in a large number of universities master degree holders were taking classes as visiting faculty members.

Explaining HEC’s lenient approach towards the universities, an official of the HEC said: “Our decision was not fully implemented as still there are some universities whose lecturers and associate professors are not meeting the criteria. But we gave universities an adequate time to implement the new hiring criteria.” Now this letter is final and if the universities did not fulfil the criteria, the quality assurance division of the HEC will take action against them that could lead to the closure of the department concerned.

Several public universities are also facing an acute shortage of faculty, affecting the quality of education. However, no step has been taken by the universities to fill the posts.

Even the country’s top ranking Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) is understaffed as currently 37pc of the academic positions (almost 154) at the university are vacant while 10 departments do not have professors and six are being managed by assistant professors and lectures.

Many teaching and administrative posts are also lying vacant in various universities, including the Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, Federal Urdu University and the International Islamic University Islamabad.

When contacted, HEC spokesperson Ayesha Ikram said all public and private universities had been directed to implement the decision regarding the appointment of lecturers and assistant professors under the new criteria.

She said the quality of education cannot be improved without having qualified teachers. She said the deadline had been extended to give an ample time to universities to implement the decision.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2017