Punjab University: Body to interview VC candidates today

HED has scheduled interviews of 20 candidates today while for six others on Tuesday

LAHORE: A total of 26 shortlisted candidates for the position of vice chancellor for the Punjab University will appear for interview today (Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday) for the preliminary round of interviews.

The Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) has issued letters to the selected candidates to appear before the search committee for interview. HED had scheduled the interviews of 20 candidates today, whereas 6 aspirants would appear before the Search Committee on Tuesday. As per the letters, the candidates have been told to appear for interview at the conference room of the Arfa Software Technology Park on the given date.

Names of 101 candidates were sent to the Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) for scrutiny. While the PHEC will submit 40 names for interviews by the search committee, who would finalise three names as well as recommend a name from among those to the chief minister for final approval.

Sources close to the matter said that because of the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the government was in a hurry to appoint vice chancellors at government-owned universities of the province. Because of this, 26 candidates were being interviewed, while the PHEC completes the scrutiny process for the rest and submit 13 more names for interviews to the Search Committee.

The shortlisted candidates for the interview are former and current vice chancellors as well as senior academics from the Punjab University and other varsities. The interviewees include Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid, Dr Muhammad Zakria Zakar, Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar, Dr Rauf-i-Azam, Dr Farhat Saleemi, Dr Shahid Kamal, Dr Shahid Munir, Dr Javed Ahmad, Dr Khalid Mahmood, Dr Muhammad Zuber, Muhammad Ashraf, Muhammad Abbas Chaudhry, Dr Muhammad Tufail, Dr Muhammad Ishtiaq Qadri, Dr Tayyab Husnain, Muhammad Iqbal, Dr Maqbool Hussain Sial, Dr Mubashar Ahmad, Dr Islam Ullah Khan, Dr Riaz Ahmad, Dr Syed Mansoor Sarwar, Syed Muhammad Awais, Dr Tahir Kamran, Dr Allah Bakhsh, Dr Tariq Mahmood Ansari and Dr Hanif Akhtar.

Meanwhile, the search committee for the Punjab University, which includes Razzaq Dawood as convener and Dr Umar Saif, Dr Zafar Iqbal Qureshi, Fauzia Viqar as members, and HED secretary as member and secretary of the committee, met on Saturday at the Government College University (GCU) Lahore.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2018.