Teachers’ boycott: PU institute postpones doctorate admissions

Senior faculty members have voiced concerns over the appointment of a top official

LAHORE: The Institute of Communication Studies (ICS) at the University of Punjab has postponed admissions to its PhD programme after several teachers of the department boycotted a meeting over the appointment of a junior teacher to top senior position.

This is the second time the admissions to the PhD programme of ICS have been cancelled by the university administration. In September 2016, the management of ICS held entry test for the PhD programme for the first time.

However, an investigation was carried out by the university and it was found that additional marks were given to some candidates after every candidate failed to qualify the test. The acting Director of ICS, Dr Noshina Saleem, was removed from her post and a junior teacher, Sawera Shami, was designated the position of the ICS acting director.



Several of the faculty members objected to this and termed Shami’s appointment in violation of rules and regulations. The latest advertisement for admissions to the PhD programme of ICS was published on December 25. As many as 15 candidates applied for the test.

A meeting of the Doctoral Programme Coordination Committee (DPCC) was scheduled to discuss the admission procedure. However, some senior teachers boycotted the meeting to register their protest against the appointment of a junior teacher who does not even hold a doctorate degree.

A faculty member of the institute, who requested not to be named, told The Express Tribune that several senior faculty members of the ICS had voiced their concerns over the appointment of Sawera Shami to the top senior post and had also registered their protest to the former vice-chancellor Dr Mujahid Kamran and Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences Dean Prof Dr Zakaria Zakar.

The faculty member said that because of the boycott of two senior teachers and the absence of another in the meeting, the decision was taken to postpone the admission once again as without the majority approval of the DPCC, admissions could not be legally conducted.

When contacted, Dr Zakaria Zakar said that the decision to cancel the admission test was taken because of “administrative reasons”.

He said that now admissions would be carried out in the next semester in July.

When asked about the differences and boycott during the DPCC meeting, he said, that he presided over the meeting as he was the dean. However, he did not comment on teachers’ boycott.

Sawera Shami was contacted several times but she was not available to give her view point on the issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2017.