Procedural matters: NCA teachers’ sacking causes campus uproar

Affected teachers say the administration lacked authority to expel them.

LAHORE:

The country’s premier art and design institute, the National College of Arts (NCA), has become a cyber battlefield over what is being termed as ‘illegal expulsion’ of six faculty members by the college administration.

The faculty members, administration and students have since been debating and discussing the issue on group emails, and social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter.

The NCA administration had barred six faculty members on May 8 from entering the college on the basis that their contracts had expired. They were Hafsa Imtiaz, an assistant professor at the architecture department, Tauseef Zainul Abideen, an assistant professor at the department of film and television, Shahzad Manzur, an assistant professor at the department of product design, Abid Ahsan, a lecturer at the film and television department, Zafar Iqbal, a lecturer at the department of musicology and Muhammad Navid, a lecturer at the ceramics design department.

NCA is a federal government institute with a Board of Governor (BoG) under the direct control of the prime minister. Its affairs are run and looked after by the Cabinet Division.



The affected teachers say the administration lacked authority to fire them as they were hired by the Board of Governors (BoG). They said the competent authority to decide their fate was either the prime minister or the cabinet division. Dr Zafar Iqbal, the musicology department incharge and one of the affected teachers, said he had been teaching at the college since 2005. He said his previous contracts had always been renewed.

“This is illegal…the acting principal has no authority to fire us. We were hired by the BoG’s approval and our status is very close to permanent,” he said. Iqbal said, “The principal has not only illegally fired me but has also unlawfully appointed a visiting faculty member with a graduation degree on the seat of a professor.”

Abid Ahsan, another teacher who is on the list, said, “The decision to fire us can only be taken by BoG or the cabinet division.”

“On one hand we are being considered for permanent jobs and on the other we have been unlawfully expelled by the administration,” he said.

Following a heated online debate, several department heads have jointly written to Acting Principal Shabnam Khan.

The heads of departments (HoDs), who are to be consulted in any matter regarding the academic management of the departments, were never consulted and were completely unaware of this matter…only two weeks are left in the end of the teaching period [term] and all contract teachers were given the responsibility to teach in this term,” the letter sent to the principal by the HoDs says.

“These contract employees should be reinstated immediately for the smooth running of the college as well as the smooth running of their homes,” the letter says.

NCA Principal Shabnam Khan told The Express Tribune, “I have no authority to renew contracts…this is the caretaker government and no appointment can take place,” she said.

Khan said, “Contract means contract, it has to end…the competent authority to reappoint the faculty members is the cabinet division.”

She said the allegation against her that she had appointed a visiting faculty member as a musicology professor was incorrect. She said she had only appointed a woman incharge who was already on the visiting faculty.

A film and TV student told The Express Tribune that the decision to sack the teachers had come when their term was ending. He said, “We need thesis supervisors… if the term is delayed, we are the ones who will have to waste a year,” he said.

However, Khan said the college had many faculty members and the students would not face problems in completing their theses.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 1^st, 2013.