LAHORE, July 25: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has approved Tenure Track System (TTS) appointment for 32 faculty members, including nine professors, of the Punjab University (PU).

The HEC is also processing the cases of some three dozens more faculty members of the university.

PU Registrar Prof Dr Muhammad Naeem Khan told Dawn that the HEC was scrutinising each and every case separately and approving according to its requirement criteria. He said the university had provided each candidate’s dossier to the commission and the scrutiny process was on.

It may be mentioned here that the PU Syndicate, first to be chaired by VC Prof Dr Mujahid Kamran on January 22 this year, had adopted the latest 2.0 version of the TTS Statute.

The TTS appointments are aimed at offering lucrative salary to teachers to motivate them to conduct research, while relieving themselves of the burden of extra-teaching load.

Later, the university had held an extended selection board and given appointment to 93 faculty members under the TTS after scrutinising their dossiers and referees’ reports.

However, the HEC did not accept the grant of TTS appointments in bulk and directed the PU to consider each case separately strictly following the commission’s requirements.

Following HEC instructions, it is learnt, the PU administration again prepared TTS appointment cases, which are being approved by the commission in batches.

It is learnt that the university is also preparing more cases for appointment under the TTS.

Separately, the Punjab University has allowed the Pakistan Study Centre to recruit teachers under the Tenure Track System according to the criteria set by the HEC.

The centre’s Board of Governors, meanwhile, approved budget of Rs9.2 million for the financial year 2008-09 and recommended that the budget for the next fiscal for the centre should be estimated around Rs12.4 million.