Applications invited for four vice chancellors slots

Posts vacant due to rejection of appointments earlier

LAHORE:

The Punjab government has asked the candidates for filling the vacant posts of vice chancellors of four public sector universities in the province to submit their applications by December 26.

The government is set to appoint the VC's of the Home Economics University, Government College University (GCU) Lahore, Islamia University Bahawalpur and University of Narowal.

According to sources in the Punjab Higher Education Department, the government has started the process for filling that posts that had been left vacant because the appointments recommended earlier had been rejected over allegations of corruption and political affiliation of the top candidates.

The provincial government had started the process for the appointment of the VCs of 25 public sector universities. The appointments for 20 universities were made three months ago.

The appointments for the GCU Lahore, Home Economics University Lahore, IUB and University of Narowal were left pending, while the appointed VC of University of Gujrat did not join due to personal issues.

While the professors urged early appointment of the VCs, the Punjab government and Governor's Secretariat resorted to airing their differences over the matter.

The Governor's Secretariat asserted that the VCs should be appointed on merit and the top three candidates for each post should be interviewed, while the provincial government claimed that it had followed the prescribed procedure in the selection.

Some groups of professors also raised questions about the matter, while others praised the chief minister for taking up the appointments that had been neglected by the previous government.

An official of the provincial government said that after some recent events at Punjab University, the search committee would particularly review the administrative experience of the candidates along with their academic career.

The sources said the appointment recommended earlier for the University of Narowal had been stopped because a former dean of a university had been suspected for offering bribe for appointment as ad hoc VC.

It had been alleged that the deserving candidates for the Home Economics University had been ignored.

Some selected candidates had been accused of having political links.

The official said the mistakes in the previous round of appointments would be kept in mind while selecting the VCs as a long time had been wasted in the past.

He said the summary of the shortlisted candidates would be sent to the CM Secretariat by the end of January.

The official said the advertisement for the appointment of the VC of University of Gujrat was also likely to be released soon, after which the posts of the heads of all government universities in the province would be filled.