VC candidates to be interviewed next week in Jhang University

Total of 140 academicians applied for position

LAHORE: The search committee for the University of Jhang held its meeting on Thursday and decided to interview the shortlisted applicants for the slot of vice chancellor next week.

An official, requesting anonymity, told The Express Tribune that a total of 140 candidates applied for the position of vice chancellor for the University for Jhang. After scrutiny by the Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC), 40 were shortlisted.

"In the meeting, only one member of the search committee was absent while the other members decided to start interviews in the coming week," the official said.



The University of Jhang is one of the seven universities in the province without a permanent head for which the Punjab Higher Education Department (HED) had advertised the position of the vice chancellor. HED plans to complete the appointment process at these universities within the next month.

The HED hit a roadblock over the decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan on the matter. However, the department was now moving forward with the appointment process.

So far, the HED has completed other formalities and conducted interviews for the University of Sahiwal, the University of Okara, Ghazi University in Dera Ghazi Khan and Information Technology University Lahore. The interviews for the post for the University of Jhang, Women's University Multan and the University of Home Economics Lahore are yet to be conducted.

Meanwhile, the HED also moved forward for appointments at other universities where the tenure of vice chancellors is about to expire. For this, the HED asked the PHEC to submit a panel of interviewers for another nine universities in Punjab.

The nine universities include University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Lahore, Islamia University of Bahawalpur (IUB), University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila, Government College University (GCU) Faisalabad, University of Gujrat (UoG), Government College for Women University (GCWU) Faisalabad, Government College for Women University (GCWU) Sialkot, University of Narowal and University of Murree.



The tenure of VCs at UET Lahore, IUB, GCU Faisalabad and UoG will complete on December 16, 2018. While the term on vice chancellors of GCWU Faisalabad and GCWU Sialkot will expire on September 9 and September 11, respectively. The position of the UET Taxila VC became vacant when the incumbent VC was appointed to the same position at Punjab University. The University of Narowal and the University of Murree have been newly established and are also without the vice chancellors.

The search committee for each university will be formed for a period of two years from the proposed panels, which will be tasked with interviewing the candidates who apply for the top slots at these universities.

Apart from the panels for search committees, the HED has also tasked the PHEC with submitting a panel of experts for both the engineering universities, UET Lahore and Taxila.