02/04/2017
Press Release regarding appointment of VCs for 9 Public Universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
The Academic Search Committee, which includes distinguished academicians
and headed by former Chairman of the Higher Education Commission, Prof. Dr. Atta
ur Rahman, interviewed some 62 candidates from amongst the 124 applicants for
the prized positions of vice chancellors on March 13 and 14, 2017.
According to sources, the Committee has finalized separate panels of recommended candidates for each university, while a significant number of eligible, well-qualified and experienced academicians of BS-21 & 22 professors, who had 20-30 years’ experience of teaching, research and administration, were not even considered worth interview. We believe that the process seems to be absolutely non-transparent and totally unfair. We know that candidates with zero administrative experience were shortlisted for interview but those with much more experience having the capability of attracting foreign funding from multiple sources were ignored. The Search Committee shortlisted and interviewed even those candidates who were not eligible on account of their 65 plus years age. Certain other candidates called for interview were not eligible even for full professorship.
We thought that the irregularities should be a matter of serious concern for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government, which has been claiming that education and health were its top priorities.
"In this era of information technology the entire process of selection must be made transparent with proper quantification and should be only and only merit based. On the basis of the required selection criteria, candidates must be quantified with proper scoring and thereafter the process should proceed accordingly to save higher education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as it concerns the future of our corning generations,"
FACT OF THE CASE:
1. More than 90% members of the Academic Search Committee are from other provinces, does this province lack competent academic experts having integrity? Violation of Provincial Autonomy!
2. A total of 125 candidates were declared eligible but many of them were over age and less qualified yet declared eligible.
3. The Search Committee devised a formula to tabulate score of individual candidates but without obtaining Government’s approval or making it public it was applied to applicants. As a result almost half of the applicants were dropped from the list.
4. Why were the rest of candidates ignored? The reason and decision was not conveyed to them in time!
5. How the Search Committee interviewed candidates with more than 65 years of age on the day of interview?
6. How did the Search Committee interview candidates not even eligible for full professorship due to lack of required service length, non-Ph.D, and those with no administrative experience, under which law/authority?
7. We know some of the candidates have reported & submitted false information in their CVs but nothing was verified.
8. Why has the Quantification Formula been kept secret so far, under the access to information law every such document has to be made public to ensure transparency & merit?
We requested honorable Chancellor of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to intervene into the matter and the high level judicial committee may be constitutes to probe the case in detail.
