Two Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa varsities get new VCs

Notification for their appointment expected soon

PESHAWAR: The provincial government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has picked new vice chancellors for the Abdul Wali Khan University (AWKU) in Mardan and the Khyber Medical University (KMU) in Peshawar.

Prof Dr Khurshid Khan has been picked to lead AWKU, while Dr Arshid Javaid has been selected as the new vice-chancellor (VC) of KMU.

A summary for their appointments has been approved by K-P Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, chancellor of the two universities, who sent it back to K-P Chief Minister Pervez Khattak for final approval.

An official of the K-P Higher Education Department, who did not wish to be named, confirmed on Monday that the Academic and Search Committee had interviewed three candidates including Prof Dr Khurshid Ahmad Khan, Prof Rehmat Ali Khan and Prof Dr Saeed Anwar Khan for the post of vice chancellor at the AWKU Mardan.

Separately, five candidates including Dr Arshad Javaid, Dr Mukhtiar Zaman Afridi, Dr Noorul Iman, Dr Abid Jamil and Dr Jawad Ahmad were interviewed for the KMU.

The official stated that the summary for the two vice-chancellors had been approved and sent to Khattak last week.

The official added that the K-P higher education department is expected to notify the selected candidates in a day or two.

In November 2016, the department had advertised the posts of vice chancellor for AWKU Mardan and KMU Peshawar.

Subsequently, the search committee shortlisted five candidates for KMU and three for AWKU.

These applicants were summoned to Islamabad where the committee interviewed each of them. A final selection of names was sent to Khattak in the last week of June.

The chief minister subsequently sent the summary of selected names to K-P governor for final approval. With the governor sending the summary back without any reservation, their appointment is all but formalised.

Dr Javaid, selected to serve as KMU’s vice chancellor, has previously served as Dean of the Postgraduate Medical Institute (PGMI) apart from serving as the chief executive of the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) and the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) in Peshawar.

Currently, he is working as the dean of LRH’s Medical Teaching Institution.

The VC’s post at KMU had fallen vacant after his predecessor Dr Hafizullah completed his eight-year tenure on April 30, 2017.

Similarly, Prof Dr Khan was appointed as the second permanent vice chancellor of AWKU. The seat fell vacant after his predecessor Dr Ihsan Ali retired on March 20, 2017.

After Dr Ali retired, the varsity was being run without a VC. During this period, Mashal Khan, a student of the varsity’s journalism department, was lynched by a mob of students on blasphemy charges.

It would be a tough task for the new vice chancellor to restore the image of the university and normalise its routine.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 11^th, 2017.