Towards greener pastures: Two SMIU deans resign

Say their post was not being regularised, VC insists the professors left for better jobs.

KARACHI:

Two faculty deans at Sindh Madressatul Islam University (SMIU) have tendered their resignations to the vice-chancellor and more are likely to follow, The Express Tribune has learnt.

These faculty members are unhappy to be working on a contractual basis for nearly two years now and believe they have no certain future at the institution. The departure of the SMIU deans of computer science and environmental sciences, Dr Safeeullah Soomro and Dr Seema Jeelani, came when the university failed to regularise their jobs and they received better offers from elsewhere.

"Since the inception of the university, no faculty member, initially hired on a contractual basis, has been regularised at their respective posts," said Dr Soomro, when approached by The Express Tribune. Presently, he was the only foreign-qualified PhD - from Graz University of Technology, Austria - at the SMIU.



"Public-sector universities have their own complex bureaucratic systems while a researcher, like me, requires peace of mind and cannot focus in the midst of uncertainty," he explained. "I would have been better off if I had stayed teaching at a private university. I cannot survive within this system."

Meanwhile, SMIU's vice-chancellor Dr Mohamamd Ali Skaikh insisted that Dr Soomro had been offered a much better package by a private university as compared to what a public-sector university could offer him. Meanwhile, Dr Jeelani, in the midst of all the delays, has been appointed at another public-sector university on a regular basis, The Express Tribune has learnt.

SMIU started classed for its first batch of students this year in January, after being awarded the status of a university in February, 2012. The university's first vice-chancellor, Dr Shaikh had made contractual faculty appointments around June, 2012, using his emergency powers at the time when the selection board for regular appointments had not been constituted.

"The contractual appointments were unavoidable at that point since we had to commence the university operations," explained Dr Shaikh. "Later on, when the selection board was formed, it was decided in its first meeting that the entire ad hoc faculty, that was hired earlier, will not automatically be given regular posts."

The university, in this manner, made it compulsory for the ad hoc faculty to appear before the selection board at the advertised posts, like other external applicants, for their fresh appointments. This requirement caused grievances among many of the senior faculty members that the university had failed to redress.

"All those who were hired earlier on contracts are at liberty to make their own decisions if they do not want to appear before the selection board," said Dr Shaikh.

For his part, Dr Soomro said he was not happy working at SMIU even though he joined at a cut down salary - earlier he was earning Rs275,000 a month and had worked at SMIU for a year-and-a-half at Rs150,000. "My father was merely a Water and Power Development Authority peon and I do not have any 'powerful source' that would keep me moving within this system," he explained, while terming the situation at public-sector universities alarming. "Those who are unable to get any employment opportunities anywhere else are ready to join public universities, while those who are qualified enough to have ample opportunities, want to depart."

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2013.