Bureaucratic efficiency: No principals hired 45 days after interviews
Disciplinary issues proliferate at ‘headless’ colleges.
LAHORE:
The Punjab government is yet to appoint principals to four public colleges, 45 days after the candidates were interviewed, as the chief minister has not received the Higher Education Department’s recommendations on who to select.
Faculty at the four colleges said that the academic and disciplinary atmosphere was deteriorating in the absence of permanent principals.
Government College Ravi Road has been without a principal for the last year and a half, Dayal Singh College for the last year, MAO College since August and Science College Wahdat Road since June 2011. Junior teachers of grade 19 have been given acting charge as principals, though the post is meant to be for grade 20 officers, an official told The Express Tribune.
A search committee headed by the additional chief secretary interviewed 10 candidates for the posts on August 23: Dr Ali Zaheer Minhas, Rao Jalil Ahmed, Zahid Butt, Dr Farhan Ebadat, Dr Muhammad Khalil, Dr Abdul Qayyum Mirza, Dr Tahir Yaqoob, Dr Tariq Aziz, Chaudhry Khalid Pervaiz and Malik Asif Nazeer.
But 45 days later and well into the start of the academic year, the Chief Minister’s Secretariat is yet to receive the recommendations of the Higher Education Department, said officials. The candidates have been shuttling between the secretariat and the department asking about the summary, the officials added.
Higher Education Secretary Haseeb Athar said the summary had been dispatched to the chief minister and the appointments would “hopefully” be finalised within a week. He did not say why the proposals had taken so long to prepare or why they hadn’t reached the CM’s Secretariat.
The absence of permanent principals has exacerbated disciplinary issues at the colleges, said teachers. They said that attendance at classes by both teachers and students was thin.
“The teachers are not afraid of the acting principals because in many cases they are senior to them,” said one teacher.
Teachers and staff at MAO and Science College Wahdat Road were not paid their salaries for September until October 8 and many protested in the city after their pay cheques bounced at the bank. Development work in various departments and purchases for laboratories had been stalled, they added.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2011.
The Punjab government is yet to appoint principals to four public colleges, 45 days after the candidates were interviewed, as the chief minister has not received the Higher Education Department’s recommendations on who to select.
Faculty at the four colleges said that the academic and disciplinary atmosphere was deteriorating in the absence of permanent principals.
Government College Ravi Road has been without a principal for the last year and a half, Dayal Singh College for the last year, MAO College since August and Science College Wahdat Road since June 2011. Junior teachers of grade 19 have been given acting charge as principals, though the post is meant to be for grade 20 officers, an official told The Express Tribune.
A search committee headed by the additional chief secretary interviewed 10 candidates for the posts on August 23: Dr Ali Zaheer Minhas, Rao Jalil Ahmed, Zahid Butt, Dr Farhan Ebadat, Dr Muhammad Khalil, Dr Abdul Qayyum Mirza, Dr Tahir Yaqoob, Dr Tariq Aziz, Chaudhry Khalid Pervaiz and Malik Asif Nazeer.
But 45 days later and well into the start of the academic year, the Chief Minister’s Secretariat is yet to receive the recommendations of the Higher Education Department, said officials. The candidates have been shuttling between the secretariat and the department asking about the summary, the officials added.
Higher Education Secretary Haseeb Athar said the summary had been dispatched to the chief minister and the appointments would “hopefully” be finalised within a week. He did not say why the proposals had taken so long to prepare or why they hadn’t reached the CM’s Secretariat.
The absence of permanent principals has exacerbated disciplinary issues at the colleges, said teachers. They said that attendance at classes by both teachers and students was thin.
“The teachers are not afraid of the acting principals because in many cases they are senior to them,” said one teacher.
Teachers and staff at MAO and Science College Wahdat Road were not paid their salaries for September until October 8 and many protested in the city after their pay cheques bounced at the bank. Development work in various departments and purchases for laboratories had been stalled, they added.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 9th, 2011.