VCs Must be Selected on Criteria set by Teachers’ Association

Academic staff of all the universities in the Punjab province of Pakistan have joined this association named as Federation of All Pakistan Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) Punjab Chapter and the association works to have policy making about the teachers and manage to coordinate with the government and other policy makers to out forward their demands and is the voice of the academic staff of the institutions.

The FAPUASA Punjab chapter has demanded that the criterion of appointing the Vice Chancellors of the University in Punjab must be met a certain criteria and it should be developed by taking all the stake holders on board including the association of the province of Punjab.

A meeting was called by the FAPUASA Punjab chapter on Friday at Punjab University Lahore to discuss the one-point agenda of the meeting which was to decide the criteria for the selection of the VC appointments in the government operated universities of Punjab. Among the clauses of the criteria which was discussed in the meeting were that the candidate of the VC must have a PhD degree and must be serving as a full professor at the university. The meeting also emphasized on the importance of research and said that it also should be considered that the candidates hold how much international publications and research papers.

They were of the view that if the research profile of the candidate is very low, how can he uplift the universities in the true sense by managing it since all the great ranking of the universities is mainly done on the number of research papers and publications. They also suggested that there should be an independent search committee which should involve in the process of VC hiring and it must comprise of reputed and senior academicians. This way the appointment of VC will be depoliticize and the right candidate will be given the job which is the key important job for any university.

The meeting was chaired by the president of the FAPUASA Punjab Chapter Dr. Javed Ahmed and among other attendees were Dr Mehboob Hussain who was ex-general secretary of FAPUASA and other members of the association of provincial chapter. The participants also resisted the mindset of the government that the teachers must not run the managerial seat of VC but this has not been the case all the time. They mentioned that one corrupt politician does not mean that all the politicians are corrupt similarly the applicants from the academia must not be turned down just that one or two individual shortfalls in the past.

The committee members pledged to have the agenda discussed with the government bodies and political leaders as will so that it should be made a part of the policy and all the points must be taken into account for future appointment of VCs in public sector universities of Punjab.