Two-year wait for permanent VCs to end

New vice chancellors selected by the provincial government are set to take charge of most of the public sectors universities in Punjab this week as the governor is likely to sign the summaries from the Chief Minister Secretariat, The Express Tribune has learnt.

According to sources, the higher education department will issue notifications regarding the appointment of the VCs after the approval by the governor of the candidates selected by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif after interviews.

The offices of permanent VCs of the universities will be filled after a gap of around two years with the completion of the process of appointments.

The sources said the top universities of the province, including the Punjab University, UET Lahore, Islamia University Bahawalpur and Faisalabad University, had instructed the pro VCs last week vacate the offices of the VCs whose renovation had begun.

The pro VCs had been enjoying the powers of the VCs for the past two years, while the teachers and academic staff had been complaining of problems because of the absence of permanent university heads.

"The governor of Punjab will hopefully sign the summaries of appointment of the VCs this week as the chancellor of the universities. After that the summaries will be sent to then higher education department that will issue the notification," said an official of Governor Secretariat.

The official said the governor was also likely to meet the new VCs and ascertain their vision for their institutions.

The sources said the government was likely to ignore fresh candidates as select most of the professors who had already served as VCs.

A young professor said the experienced contenders had already overseen a deterioration of the conditions in the universities. He said especially the foreign qualified young professors were set to be disheartened by the selection.

The sources said former VC of the Government College University, Dr Asghar Zaidi, was set to be ignored allegedly because of organising an event featuring PTI leader Imran Khan. Dr Zaidi contended that said political governments pressured VCs regarding visits to the universities by their leaders.

The sources said the government was planning to re advertise the post of the VC of the GCU Lahore, University of Gujrat, University of Narowal and Information Technology University (ITU) as the candidates selected by the search committee had been suspected of being involved in malpractices.

Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (FAPUASA) President Professor Amjad Magsi said the pro VCs had damaged the universities during the past years and the professors had faced difficulties under their administration.

"Research activities and development projects suffered a number of universities, especially the PU, faced sever problems. We struggled a lot for the appointment of regular VCs."

He said the teachers would welcome the new VCs in the universities and would hope that merit would prevail and progress ensue after their appointment.