Body to interview candidates for provisional VCs today

Heads of both varsities were dismissed on Supreme Court’s orders

LAHORE: Interviews for the provisional vice chancellors for the Punjab University and Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) will be conducted on Friday (today) after the dismissal of the heads of both varsities on the directions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) has notified the registrars for interviews to appoint provisional vice chancellors, who will remain in charge of the varsities until a permanent head is hired by the government.

According to the notification, the search committee constituted for the appointment of a permanent head at the Punjab University, will interview five senior-most academics from Punjab University and three from LCWU to fill the slot.

The notification asked Dr Bushra Khan from the department of chemistry, Dr Shagufta Naz from the department of biotechnology and Dr Farkhanda Manzoor from the department of zoology to appear for the interview in the committee room of the Government College University (GCU) Lahore.

For Punjab University, the department had asked Dr Taqi Zahid Butt, Dr Shahid Kamal, Dr Fakhr ul Haq Noori, Dr Nasira Jabeen and Dr Saleem Mazhar to appear for the interview today.

According to the Punjab University seniority list, Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar is in the 5th spot. However, Dr Akhtar is on leave from the Punjab University and is working at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila as its vice chancellor.



The HED has decided that the search committee formed to appoint a permanent vice chancellor at Punjab University will conduct interviews for the interim vice chancellors at both varsities. The members of the committee include noted industrialist Abdul Razak Dawood as the convener of the committee and Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) Chairman and founding Vice Chancellor of Information Technology University (ITU) Dr Umar Saif, Dr Punjab Accreditation Committee Chairman Zafar Iqbal Qureshi, and Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) Chairperson Dr Fauzia Waqar as its members. Punjab HED Secretary Nabeel Awan is the secretary and also the member of the Search Committee.

Earlier on Monday, HED accepted the resignation of Dr Zakria Zakar and suspended Dr Uzma Qureshi from her post in line with the orders of the Supreme Court.

The orders came after the apex court on Saturday suspended Punjab University acting Vice Chancellor Dr Zakar during the hearing of the case of the varsity's 80 kanlas of land being handed over to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) to build a grid-station. However, Dr Zakar tendered his resignation before the court.

Similarly on Sunday, during the hearing of another case, the Supreme Court suspended LCWU Vice Chancellor Dr Qureshi from her post. The apex court also ordered the provincial government to form a new inquiry committee to look into allegations against Dr Qureshi's eligibility within three days.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2018.