Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The academic activities in one of the country’s top ranked universities, the Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) are suffering badly due to the ongoing tussle between the administration and faculty of the university, Daily Times has learnt.

The academic and official affairs of the university remained under suspension due to the strike announced by the university’s faculty mainly led by the Academic Staff Association (ASA) to press the authorities to meet their sole demand which is the resignation by the incumbent vice chancellor Dr Javed Ashraf citing incompetence.

The strike began in the first week of February which resulted in a breakin of almost all the university’s affairs. The administration block and university’s transport section has also been locked down by the protesters.

The mutual tussle of the administration and faculty however is creating a bad impact on the university’s reputation as well as on the students’ academic activities.

According to rules set by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), when any university or Degree Awarding Institute would miss its academic classes for such a long period, the whole semester is put to a halt.

This academic semester was for five months.

While commenting on the prevailing situation, a senior official of the university questioned how was it possible that a course pattern created for five months could be covered in two or three months’ time.

He said that both the vice chancellor and protesters adhered to their demands without taking in account the loss of the students who have paid their fee.

VC Dr Javed Ashraf told this correspondent that the protest was the legal right of the faculty but the way they were conducting it was not appropriate.

“Through this approach, a precedent would be established in the future if I resign,” he feared.

When asked how the course of the ongoing semester will be recovered, he claimed, “The university has legal provision to extend the semester duration, so it will be done and there is no such special issue in this regard.”

Despite being asked repeated repeatedly, the VC did not give any definite time frame on the resumption of the official businesses of the university. Interestingly, he said this question should be asked from the ASA who are the “culprits” behind the whole disturbance.

The ASA had reaffirmed that “We have an unflinching commitment and we will never back out from our sole demand.”

The QAU is the only university of Pakistan which is placed among the top 500 Asian universities, according to Times Higher Education rankings which is an international agency to conduct rankings among the world universities. But since the last few years, the university has fallen prey to politics and frequent strikes by students and faculty have become its routine matter. A senior official termed the situation “very regretful”.

According to the available information, President Mamnoon Hussain and the HEC have not bothered to hold a single meeting in this regard.

Published in Daily Times, March 21^st 2018.