Illegal promotions: KU goes against own rules to promote teachers

The two teachers had been declared ‘not recommended for the positions’ by the selection board in 2010.

KARACHI: In a surprising move that goes against the university’s own rules, two in-service faculty members and a retired staff member at the University of Karachi (KU) have been awarded promotions on ‘humanitarian grounds’ in a syndicate meeting last week.

The meeting, chaired by the varsity’s vice chancellor, Dr Muhammad Qaiser, was convened to discuss the controversial promotions of a political science department’s associate professor, Dr Nusrat Idris, and an assistant professor, Samina Saeed.

Members of the syndicate, despite their reservations regarding the violation of merit in the presence of negative reports submitted by the five successive selection boards as well as international referees, did not put much resistance in the face of Dr Qaiser’s inclination to offer this ‘favour’ to the teachers.

“Another retired, visually-challenged associate professor, Dr Abdullah Qadri, was awarded a professor grade on the same grounds so that the violation in the case of the two in-service teachers may be defended,” said the syndicate member.

Meanwhile, the step was also declared a ‘violation’ of the rules and regulations laid down by the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) newly appointed chairperson, Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gilani. He told The Express Tribune that all universities across the country are bound to follow the HEC rules as well as their own acts and codes, which do not carry any provision for the promotion of teachers on ‘humanitarian grounds’.

“The HEC will call for an explanation from the vice chancellor. He must remember that he is heading a public-sector university and not some NGO that may foster the concept of humanitarian grounds in its affairs,” asserted Gilani.

The names of Dr Idris and Saeed, who have been approved for promotion to the ranks of professor and associate professor respectively, will now be sent to the chief minister, who is also the chancellor of the university, for a final say and notification.

Though the KU teachers’ society president, Dr Jameel Kazmi, approved of a fair and merit-based system of appointments, he did not happen to withdraw his support for the ‘promoted’ teachers. “I believe that nobody should become a professor on humanitarian grounds as this practice demonstrates a propensity to disregard merit. But there were valid reasons in the cases of the teachers in question,” said Dr Kazmi, providing a justification that the promoted teachers had been hanging for over a decade.

“If they did not merit the promotion, the university selection board, instead of referring their cases back to the syndicate again and again since 2004, should have declared their ineligibility for promotion in a clearer manner,” he said.

Contrary to this statement, the selection board in the year 2010 had unanimously declared the said positions in the political science department vacant. The vice-chancellor of KU was unavailable for comments despite repeated attempts.

How the promotions system works

The KU has allocated a number of lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors and professors for a department in each faculty. If the chairperson of a particular department finds positions vacant, he or she requests the university registrar for new appointments.

Meanwhile, the university administration waits for more requests from other departments. Once there are enough vacancies, the university deputy registrar handles the recruiting process by placing an advertisement in the newspapers. The short listed applications for the post of professors and assistant professors are sent to three foreign referees who scrutinise the resumes and then send a confidential letter to the vice chancellor. The VC, in turn, reads the letter during the selection board meeting.

The university syndicate, however, does not carry this authority to ‘appoint’ any teacher.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2013.