Mismanagement plagues Federal Urdu University

Some of the institution’s most important decisions, put on hold, waiting for a senate meeting

KARACHI:

The President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, who is also holding the reins as the chancellor of the Federal Urdu University appears to have left many stones unturned during his three-and-a-half years of heading the public institution.

Per controversies that have shadowed the president since he assumed chancellorship in the summer of 2018, his tenure is alleged to be responsible for depriving the university of permanent vice-chancellors, associations with contentious search committees for their election, inactivity of constitutional bodies including the senate and various other cases of orginisational mismanagement including issues delaying the recruitment of teachers.

Resultantly, the Federal Urdu University has remained stuck in an administrative limbo while no progress is yet visible on the horizon owing to the non-convening of a meeting of the senate by the presidency, the most authoritative constitutional body of the university. Owing to this, essential decisions like those pertaining to the university’s budget and the selection board have been put in cold storage.

As far as the fault lines go, it should be noted that the Federal Urdu University, which currently has three campuses across Islamabad and Karachi, has not had a permanent administrative head in the last two years. However, an acting vice-chancellor arrives in Karachi every few weeks to browse through the university’s administrative affairs.

Read More: 8 educational institutions closed after Covid surge

Regarding the appointment of a new permanent vice-chancellor, sources privy to university matters say that the meeting for it has to be convened by the president, who is currently the university’s chancellor per the recommendation of the acting vice-chancellor. “However, as an inquiry report is to be tabled in the Senate against the chancellor’s representative, Deputy Chairman Senate AQ Khalil, the meeting is being postponed to avoid this report and the letter written by the vice-chancellor in this regard is not being answered. For this reason, the Senate of Federal Urdu University has not been able to convene for many months,” the source informed.

Records suggest that the incumbent Acting Vice-Chancellor Dr Ziaul-Qayyum first wrote a direct letter to President Dr Arif Alvi on January 20 to convene a meeting. Later, on March 4, the university’s registrar, Dr Rubina Mushtaq, refuting Qayyum’s action, wrote a letter to the secretary of the federal ministry of education, stating that the current acting vice-chancellor of the university has no authority to convene a meeting of the statutory bodies of the university.

However, per Mushtaq, considering the cases relating to the university and its office bearers that are currently boiling in the high court, the meeting of the senate is the need of the hour. “The chancellor had been informed about this in a letter issued to him in February, to which he has yet not replied. We should be assisted in obtaining the permission of the chancellor for this meeting. However, despite these letters, no meeting has been convened and no response has been received from the Presidency or the Federal Ministry of Education,” she told.

Meanwhile, the Presidency’s Director General Sohail Akhtar has denied receiving any letter or summary regarding the convening of the aforementioned meeting. “It is not our job to convene a meeting, it is the job of the federal ministry of education and they should be probed about it,” he asserted. However, when asked if the Chancellor’s Secretariat is headed by the presidency, Akhtar maintained that the Chancellor’s Secretariat would (rather) take any action on the recommendation of the concerned ministry or the Prime Minister’s House.

The Express Tribune has also tried contacting the Federal Ministry of Education’s Secretary Naheed Durrani for her position on the matter, but she has so far remained unavailable to comment.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2022.