ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has rejected promotion proposals of eight faculty members of the International Islamic University (IIU), Islamabad over lack of required criteria and credentials. According to the documents available with Daily Times, the IIU administration in October last year blindly forwarded a request proposal to the HEC seeking promotion of its faculty members. However, the commission through a letter in November informed the university that the proposed candidates did not fulfil the prescribed criteria for the academic positions. The documents stated that the IIU administration had forwarded 11 names for approval by the commission. However, promotion proposals of Dr Tariq Javed, Dr Ishfaq Ahmed, Dr Nasir Ali, Dr Ayyaz Hussain, Dr Mumtaz Ahmed, Dr Ihsanul Haq, Dr Jabar Zaman Khattak and Dr Abdul Jalil were rejected. As per documents, all eight staffers were having cadres of assistant professor in different departments of the university. The IIU administration had approved promotion of the eight faculty members as tenured associate professors. Besides other objections raised by the HEC Quality Assurance Wing, non-provision of HEC endorsement letter as assistant professor to the wing was common for all of them. Sources alleged that the candidates did not possess this kind of letter. Also the HEC informed the IIU administration that Dr Tariq Javed, who works in Department of Mathematic, did not have detailed performance of DTRC in which recommendation for associate professor was notified. “Besides, TRP members Dr Stan and Dr Wu have not specified particular position for promotion on TTS, while another TRP member Dr Muhammad Saleem is a dual national holder, who is not allowed for this job as per the law. The promotion proposal for Dr Ishfaq Ahmed of the Statistics Department was approved by the university. However, HEC rejected the proposal, saying that detailed performance of DTRC in which recommendation for associate professor was notified was not presented to the HEC Quality Assurance. Dr Ahmed also doesn’t have documents regarding tabular performance of DTRC in which recommendation for associate professor was notified. Moreover, the varsity also remained failed to provide two positive TRP reports by at least two neutral foreign experts from academically, technologically advanced countries in clear context of tenured appointment on official letter pads of the experts. IN the case of the Dr Nasir Ali, the HEC said that his TRP members Dr Stan and Dr Wu have not specified particular position for promotion on TTS. Similarly, the proposal of Dr Ayyaz Hussain of Computer Science Department was found lacing detailed performance of DTRC in which recommendation for associate professor was notified. And TRP members Dr Imran and Prof Ghulam Chaudhry are dual nationality holders. In the promotion proposal of Dr Mumtaz Ahmed of Physics Department, it was stated that the IIU had granted Dr Mumtaz ex-Pakistan leave without pay from July 1, 2012 to May 27, 2013, while the university did not provide the detail notification of the leave. “Moreover, two advance increments cannot be awarded at the time of promotion while the varsity violated this rule.” The IIU had recommended promotion of Dr Ihsan ul Haq who works in Electronic department, while the candidate did not possess the HEC equivalence certificate for PhD degree. Moreover, TRP member Dr Shehroz Khan was termed dual national by the commission. Besides, another TRP member Dr Zahid Hussain, who is working as senior staff scientist at LBNL, Berkely, was also pointed out as a dual nationality holder by the commission. The university sought HEC sanction for promotion of Dr Jabar Zaman Khattak, while he, according to the documents, kept official notification of Sabbatical leave of eight months. The commission said that Dr Jones could not raise his TRP report as he was working as a senior lecturer at the Institute of Integrative Biology, University Of Liverpool, while Dr Jones is also junior in rank to Dr Khattak. Sources in the IIU said that currently Dr Tariq Javed is also working as student advisor, which is purely an administrative slot. As per HEC rules, a tenured faculty member could not hold any administrative slot while the university forwarded his promotion as tenured track associate professor recommendation intentionally while keeping the fact under carpet. Rector Dr Masoom Yasinzai said that all faculty members were highly qualified. Published in Daily Times, January 3rd 2018.