Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The ongoing tussle between Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman and Academic Staff Association (ASA) of Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) is going to be extended as a special meeting of the representatives of all the academic staff associations of the public sector universities has been called in International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) on Friday.

This week a heated debate was observed based on allegations between QAU’s ASA and the HEC on the matter related to the demotion of three faculty members in QAU by its syndicate. The representative body of academic staff in QAU believed that the HEC Chairman exceeded to its powers as member of the varsity’s syndicate and tried to influence the whole proceedings whereas the HEC has announced that the issue was settled according to rules and regulations.

The controversy first came under the spotlight when QAU’s ASA wrote a letter to the HEC Chairman to express their grievances by endorsing a copy of same letter to media. They blamed the HEC chairman for its alleged pressure to demote three faculty members of the university and also questioned that under which capacity the HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed had influenced the whole proceedings of QAU’s syndicate meeting. They declared the role of HEC chairman derogatory and also considered it as a brutal example of transgression into the institutional autonomy of Pakistan’s top-ranking university.

On the other hand, the Public Relation (PR) Department of the HEC issued a clarification in response of that letter which stated that the syndicate of QAU Islamabad has annulled appointments of some faculty members of the university due to violation of approved criteria for appointment of university teachers on Tenure Track System (TTS).

The HEC further identified that the said appointments were subject to the approval of the commission whereas after reviewing the cases it was concluded that the appointments violates the criteria for relevant posts. The HEC pointed out such violations case to case and stated that an assistant professor who was appointed as associate professor had published only one research paper in HEC recognised research journal against requirement of 10 for the purpose.

Similarly, an associate professor was appointed after two years of service on Tenure Track System (TTS) as against minimum requirement of four years. Furthermore, in another case the faculty member had assumed an unauthorised academic administration position in violation of the tenure track statutes. The duration on this position could not be counted towards appointment but still the university went ahead with the decision, which was against the rules and regulations.

At the end of the day, the QAU’s ASA is going to convene a meeting of all academic staff associations of the public sector universities of the federal capital. The sources claims that the meeting would be held at International Islamic University Islamabad and representatives of National University of Science and Technology (NUST), National Universities of Modern Languages (NUML), Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) and Federal Urdu University would attend the meeting.

While talking to the Daily Times, the QAU’s ASA President Dr Asif said, “We considered the decision of HEC as an intrusion in autonomy of public sector universities which would not be tolerated at any cost. He further said, “In tomorrow’s meeting we will make our next plan to tackle the issue as HEC’s response on the issue is unsatisfactory”.