Another storm is brewing at the University of Karachi (KU) with the administration thinking over introducing four new faculties by bifurcating the current arts and science faculties, citing easy management and immediate results.
The varsity is likely to take up the proposal of division of existing faculties in its academic council meeting scheduled to be held on March 12 for approval.
The teachers’ community has already decided to resist the move, claiming that division of faculties will badly affect the future of students as bifurcation is aimed at declaring some disciplines superior than others.
KU teachers claimed that the inclusion of creating new faculties in the academic council’s agenda is a move to empower some blue-eyed people, who are just interested in getting deanship instead of improving academic standards.
The KU plans to divide the current Arts Faculty into Faculty of Humanities and Faculty of Social Sciences while the Science Faculty is to be divided into Faculty of Life Sciences and Faculty of Physical and Chemical Sciences.
Earlier, in a KU Academic Council meeting on January 6, 2010, proposals to divide art and science faculties into four faculties were discussed but the teachers’ community strongly objected to the suggestion. Then the former KU Vice Chancellor, Prof Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui, formed a committee with Academics Pro-Vice Chancellor (PVC) announced as the committee’s convener. In a meeting then presided over by Siddiqui, the division of art and science faculties into four faculties was approved.
As per the plan, departments of Arabic, Bengali, Education, English, General History, Islamic History, Persian, Psychology, Sindhi, Urdu and Visual Studies will fall under the Faculty of Humanities, with two chairs, Dr Ishtiaque Hussain Qureshi and Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, also placed in the same faculty. The Pakistan Study Centre, Institute of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Modern Languages and all language courses will also be placed in the humanities faculty.
The departments of Economics, International Relations, Library and Information Sciences, Mass Communication, Political Sciences, Social Work, Sociology and Special Education were placed in the Faculty of Social Sciences, with Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Chair, Applied Economics Research Centre, Women’s Studies Centre and Area Study Centre for Europe also placed in the same faculty.
The KU’s science faculty will be divided into the Faculty of Life Sciences and Faculty of Physical and Chemical Sciences.
The departments of Agriculture, Biochemistry, Botany, Biotechnology, Genetics, Microbiology, Physiology, Zoology, Marine Reference Collection Resource Centre, Centre of Molecular Genetics, National Nematological Research Centre, Institute of Sustainable Halophytes, Institute of Marine Science, Dr AQ Khan Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering are to be placed in the life sciences faculty.
Whereas, the departments of Applied Chemistry, Applied Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, Food Science and Technology, Geography, Geology, Mathematics, Statistics, Physics, Environmental Science, Institute of Space and Planetary Astrophysics and HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry are to be placed in the Faculty of Physical and Chemical Sciences.
Meanwhile, claiming that the varsity has already experienced division of power by sharing power of pro-vice chancellors by making two of them – PVC Academic Affairs and PVC Planning and Development – without any fruitful results, the teachers’ community announced that they will resist the proposal in the academic council.
They were of the view that the varsity management is following international practices but it should also keep in mind that the field of humanities has a limited scope in Pakistan. “The varsity should first create job opportunities for the humanities’ graduates before further alienating them,” they added.
The teachers had rejected this proposal in the academic council meeting a few years ago and will again resist this change in the upcoming meeting also, the teachers said.
Talking with Pakistan Today, KU Academic Affairs PVC Prof Dr Shahana Urooj Kazmi said after the January 6, 2010 Academic Council Session, she was assigned to work over the division of arts and science faculties as their sizes were getting larger with the passage of time.
“It has become difficult to handle the affairs of the two large faculties,” she claimed. “The varsity decided to divide them into four faculties as it is much easier to handle and manage smaller faculties and the deans concerned can easily sort out problems of their departments.”
Kazmi said the KU Code has a provision for establishment of new faculties if necessary. “When the arts and science faculties were formed, there were only 10,000 students studying at the varsity and now around 28,000 students are enrolled.”
Giving the example of University of Moscow, she said the varsity runs a separate faculty of chemistry, while the KU only has a department for the subject.
The KU PVC admitted that the division of faculties may help some people in becoming deans, but in fact a professor working in the field of physical and chemical sciences or social sciences could not be promoted to other ranks and deanship as the research in both disciplines are much tougher than life sciences and humanities.
When approached for comments, KU VC Prof Dr Mohammad Qaiser said the proposal would be placed before the Academic Council on March 12 and the council’s approval or rejection will decide its fate.
He also agreed with the KU Academic Affairs PVC that the division of faculties may improve the working of departments as it is will be easier for the deans concerned to manage smaller faculties.
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