Analysis: Varsity bill fails to ensure uniformity

Provisions in law allow govt to devise admissions policy of only three Karachi universities.

KARACHI: When it passed the controversial Sindh Universities Law (Amendment) Act 2013, the government said it wants to “maintain uniformity in the organisation, management and control of public-sector universities”. It ended up, however, introducing a prejudicial distinction between the higher seats of learning.

The provisions in the law, which was placed in Sindh’s statute books in August last year, empower the government, construed to mean the chief minister, to take over the administrative, financial and academic control of almost all the universities and chartered institutes in the province.

The varsities, like at least two dozen other public departments and institutions, have been made to survive and function on the ‘blessings’ of the chief executive of the province, who nevertheless has apologised several times lately over the shocking findings of the Annual Status of Education Report on the unprecedented deterioration in the education system.

“Though we have been in the government for the last six years and attempted to do our best, I concede that we could not meet the expectations of the people of Sindh,” said Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, while presiding over an official event that was held in the first week of March at Regent Plaza.

‘Discriminatory’ clauses

The amendments may be deemed at creating uniformity at face value but a deeper look at the clauses reveals that certain parts of the law do not apply to all universities in Sindh. In fact, the Sindh government has wrested the powers of devising the admission policy from none other than the three most reputed public universities of the province, including the University of Karachi, the NED University of Engineering and Technology and Dow University of Health Sciences. Before the amendment, the university academic councils were responsible of regulating the admission of students to the courses of studies and examinations in the university.

“The policy of admission of the university in general including its constituent colleges, institutes and centres shall be followed as determined by the government from time to time in order to provide equal opportunities to all the students of province of Sindh,” stated the amendments specific to the enactments regulating the three institutions.  It was no surprise that the administrative and teaching staff at these universities perceived this amendment as a recipe for ‘victimisation’. The academics dread political point-scoring on the government’s part by claiming to have crossed the ‘rural-urban divide’ in Sindh by introducing the controversial quota system in these universities. This will not only undermine the merits but will also violate the varsities’ territorial jurisdiction and their right to regulate the admission policies and criteria.

Rendering statuary bodies worthless

Besides allowing the government to regulate the admission policy of certain public universities, the new amendments have also empowered the political entities to appoint key administrative officials, including, all public varsity registrars, examination controllers and finance directors, at their will by completely bypassing the university statutory bodies, such as the syndicate, senate, selection board and academic council.

Since the law was passed in haste as a unilateral decision rather than an agreement negotiated with all the parties involved, it has left numerous clauses that will adversely affect the functioning of statutory bodies vis-à-vis the unilaterally appointed administrative officials and, hence, the overall performance of the universities. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2014.