Students suffer as governor, CM fight over VCs’ appointments

Although, the tussle between the Punjab governor and chief minister over appointment of vice-chancellors (VC) of public-sector universities has some political motives, but the real victims of the tussle are students, faculty members and the general public, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Varsities, functioning without permanent VCs, have become hubs of problems while academic and research activities have also been affected. Parents, researchers and educationists have condemned the governor and CM for delaying the appointment of VCs. Faculty members and students said that it was a social tragedy that the country lacked visionary leadership and requested state functionaries not to destroy the education sector just for their vested interests. A survey conducted by Pakistan Today at four universities, including Government College University (GCU), Lahore, University of Education (UoE), University of Sargodha and Bahauddin Zikriya University (BZU) Multan shows that the situation at these varsities has worsened and faculty members, researchers and all stakeholders associated with the higher education sector were condemning the governor and CM, who were playing with the future of students.
Slots of VCs at these four varsities are vacant since the last eight months but the Punjab government has failed to appoint regular VCs at these four verities. Thousands of students from across Pakistan are enrolled at these varsities in various programmes while hundreds of PhD scholars and researchers are also enrolled in different disciplines. After retirement of regular VCs, charge of the VC was given to the most senior faculty member but acting VCs have not been able to handle the affairs well and faculty members are waiting for permanent VCs.
The Punjab government advertised posts around seven months ago and research committees short-listed the candidates and sent summaries to the CM, who after the 18th Constitutional Amendment is the competent authority to appoint VCs. Due to the tussle between the governor and CM, the governor rejected the summary of the CM regarding appointment of VCs while the Punjab government also rejected the summary of the governor last week.
According to students, it is beyond understanding what these rulers are doing and people associated with varsities are suffering, as all administrative and development projects had stopped. According to a GCU faculty member, situation at the varsity is not different than a third class educational institution such as Government MAO College.
He said that it is a tragedy that the Sharif brothers, despite being Old Ravians, were not considering the issues due to absence of a regular VC at GCU. He said that how the system could run without an administrator and due to absence of the VC, an incompetent group of teachers were damaging the varsity and trying to fill important vacancies. He demanded the Punjab government to ban appointments at the four universities until appointment of regular VCs.
A UoE senior professor said that thousands of students will apply for admissions, as the new session will soon start and there is an urgent need of a regular VC. He said that although they were running affairs of the varsity but a regular VC is an urgent need at the UoE, which has a number of campuses in different cities of the country. A PhD student at BZU said that in 2002, there were only 38 varsities in the country but now 74 public and 60 private-sector universities were present but the four universities, where permanent VCs are missing, are at the top regarding research activities. He said that development was seen at varsities during army rule and graph of universities improved but civilian rulers, who raise slogans of promotion of education, are destroying all development at the four major universities. He said that the student community was realising that these rulers have no interest in educational development.
Student Sabeen said that in any foreign country, search committees did not appoint VCs and if the Punjab government constituted search committees to select VCs then the system should be allowed to work. She accused rulers of doing politics on several issues and urged them not to harm the education sector.