Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: No rules at International Islamic University (IIU) while awarding PhD degrees as one of its students submitted thesis for doctoral degree in 11 months instead 24 months as per prescribed rules and regulations.

According to the documents available with Daily Times, Muhammad Arshad Zia got his doctorate in the Mathematics from IIU in 2009 while the varsity totally neglected the most fundamental laws declared by Higher Education Commission (HEC) and its own/internal Quality Assurance Cell (QAC).

Zia completed his PhD comprehensive on March 2009. His synopsis and name of supervisor were approved from Board of Advance Studies and Research (BASR) as late as in April 2009. He submitted his thesis just after the 11 months of the approval from the BASR while neglecting the rules and regulations. The legal duration for such purpose is at least 24 months.

The BASR is responsible body to approve all research proposals of M.Phil and PhD degrees.

The documents reveals that Zia enrolled himself as PhD student in 2004 at IIU while he registered his course work in spring and fall semesters 2005 and passed two courses in that period.

After a gap of two years, he again registered two more PhD courses in fall 2007 and spring 2008 and completed only total of 12 credit hours (CH) course work up to spring semester 2008.

According to the IIU and HEC rules, the student of PhD should must have 18 CH of course work for the obtaining his doctoral. Whereas Zia, as per the available records, has shortage of 6 CH course work.

Moreover, as per the IIU bylaws the name of examiners and thesis evaluators should not be in the notice of the actual student who is submitting the thesis. The student should also have no access to them (examiners or thesis evaluators).

However, in the case of Zia, according to the documentary evidences, this secret could not be withheld. Zia himself sent the soft copy of his PhD thesis two weeks in advance on February 12, 2010 to Professor Pasquale Vitro in Italy for his approval whereas the name of Vitro was presented before the President, IIU for his approval as foreign expert for evaluation of the said PhD thesis, on February 2,2010.

The available information suggests that Professor Vitro has been a research collaborator with this candidate (Zia) and published papers as co-authors including a paper which is based on this thesis.

Very surprisingly a thesis examiner published a paper jointly with the candidate before the examination.

The published article in ‘Mathematical and Computer Modeling. It shows that he has evaluated his own research work which has been included the PhD thesis of Zia.

Furthermore the selection of Muhammad Tayyab Kamran as examiner to conduct viva voce for the thesis, was also out of the way as Kamran was even too junior then zia to whom the viva was being conducted.

In a letter written by Chairperson Department of Mathematics, Dr Rahmat Ellahi, copy of which obtained by this correspondent, he took this irregularity in the notice of President and Chairperson Academic Council of IIU with copy to Director QEC, HEC Islamabad.

“I am genuinely aggrieved to see this large scale violation of IIU/HEC rules to grab PhD degrees (by Zia). I would like to propose the following remedies to the violations so that the reported cases can be aligned with IIU rules in vogue for PhD degree”, Ellahi suggested.

A senior official in the IIU, wished not to be named, revealed that Zia has been given illegal favor while awarding him doctoral just because he was president of Academic Staff Association (ASA) on that time. “If you want to get PhD degree in 11 months or 23 years, be part of ASA of IIU”, he criticized.

Despite repeated attempts, Rector IIU Dr Masoom Yasinzai could not be reached to have comments. The HEC, chairperson Dr Mukhtar Ahmed was approached for his views as his office had been informed in writing about irregularities. He, however, refused to comment with out reviewing the documents thoroughly.