Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A professor has appeared as an “iron lady” by holding seven positions at the same time in the country’s top ranked Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU).

Reliable sources at the varsity told Daily Times that QAU’s Vice Chancellor Dr.Javed Ashraf fled to the USA last week for the celebration of the Eid festival with his family. Following his departure, Professor Dr Aliya H Khan has been assigned the acting charge of VC.

According to the sources she is also serving against the position of Dean in a couple of departments-the Faculty of Social Sciences as well as the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

Earlier, VC Ashraf was holding the additional charge of Dean Faculty of Natural Sciences. Accordingly the authority of the Faculty Natural Sciences Dean has been autocratically transferred to Dr.Khan.

Very interestingly neither Dr.Ashraf nor Dr.Khan are holding degrees in any subject of the natural sciences. They have a degree of Economics which is a part of social science subjects. “How can a social scientist run the natural sciences department matters as he/she does not have the study in the relevant subject”, questioned a senior academic on the condition of anonymity.

Dr Ashraf took the additional charge of Faculty Natural Sciences Dean after the previous faculty Dean Dr. Fazal Bhatti retired on June 9 this year.

The official sources further informed that Dr.Ashraf also had adopted the same practice in November 2015 when Bhatti’s last successor Dr Zakaullah retired. At that time, Dr Ashraf himself had assumed the additional charge of Faculty Dean but on strong condemnation by academics, he had to surrender and proposed the name of Dr Zaka as Dean.

The Quaid-e-Azam University Act 1973 states that a Professor or Associate Professor would be inducted on the Dean’s slot. No compulsion was imposed in the act as either he/she should be a part of the Tenure Track System (TTS) faculty, or a non-TTS faculty. In case, a department has no professor or associate professor, then the chairperson of that department is the concerned Dean of Faculty. But the QAU is not complying with its own by-laws in letter and spirit.

Dr Khan is also the having the designation of chairperson in four key departments of the varsity: the Department of Defence & Strategic Studies, the Department of Sociology, the Department of Linguistic, School of Law as well as the Director for both Quaid-e-Azam School of Management and Information Technology.

In another example of maladministration the university is being functioning without a permanent faculty Natural Sciences Dean, Registrar, Deputy Registrar and the syndicate — an apex body for policy making in the varsity — is also being run without any dean while as per rules one dean should be part of the syndicate and the VC is bound to send a proposal of four seniormost professors to the president who is the chancellor of the varsity for concluding the approval.

The list of seniormost professors in the natural sciences department includes the names of Dr. Azhar Abbas Rizvi, Dr. Amin Badshah and Dr. Muhammad Ayub.

Very interestingly, Dr Ashraf had sent the Registrar Dr Shafeequr Rehman on forced leave a year ago for unknown reasons and Sabir Khan is serving against the post.

Despite repeated attempts Registrar Sabir Khan who is overseeing the administration of the varsity, was not available for his views.

However, Dr.Aliya Khan says that she has over 20 years working experience and she has a good discernment of all the administrative as well as the academics matters of the varsity.

Responding to a question about her nomination for the slot, Dr.Khan claims that she has been nominated by the President of Pakistan who is the chancellor of the QAU.