Government appoints six VCs

Notification issued despite governor's reservations

LAHORE:

Ignoring the concerns of the Governor's Secretariat regarding the appointment of vice chancellors, the Punjab government on Tuesday appointed the heads of six public sector universities in the province.

The government appointed five female university VCs in the fresh phase.

The VCs of the Lahore College for Women University (LCWU), Fatima Jinnah University Rawalpindi, Government Sadiq College University Bahawalpur, Government Faisalabad University, Women University Sialkot and Government Women University Faisalabad were appointed for a period of four years.

However, some professors serving as pro-VCs questioned the appointment of candidates who has already served at VC multiple times.

The provincial government made the appointments despite a row persisting between the Chief Minister's and Governor's Secretariats over the appointment of VCs of 25 public sector universities.

The appointments notified by the government included that of Dr Uzma Qureshi as the LCWU Vice Chancellor again.

The Punjab government appointed Dr Rouf-e-Azam the VC of the GCUF, Dr Kanwal Ameen of GCWUF, Dr Bushra Mirza of FJWU, Dr Shazia Bashir of Government Women University Sialkot and Dr Shazia Anjum of GSCU Bahawalpur.

The Punjab Higher Education Department issued the notification of the appointments and the VCs took charge of their offices.

Commenting on the appointments, a senior professor of Punjab University said the provincial government had ignored young candidates having foreign PhD degrees and research on their credit, preferring those who had already served on the posts.

He said the pro VCs who had also served in the absence of permanent VCs had been ignored in the appointments.

The posts of VCs in a large number of government universities in Punjab had been vacant for around three years.

When the government had forwarded a summary regarding the appointments last month, the Punjab governor had aired his reservations in this regard.