Vice chancellors of Punjab University (PU) and Lahore College for Women University (LCWU) on Wednesday assumed their offices, as the provincial Higher Education Department (HED) issued a notification for the appointment of VCs in four public sector universities on the provisional basis in compliance with an order of Lahore High Court (LHC).
A-single-member bench of the LHC comprising Justice Shahid Karim had declared the appointments of VCs in four universities illegal on December 1, on a petition filed by Dr Aurangzeb Alamgir, Samee Uzair Khan and among others.
The Punjab government filed an Intra-Court Appeal (ICA) against the decision of the bench but a division bench comprising Chief Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Fiasal Zaman Khan rejected the ICA filed by the Punjab government on December 19 while announcing the VCs for four universities Dr Mujahid Kamran of Punjab University (PU), Dr Nazra Sultana of University of Sargodha (UoS), Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid of Muhammad Nawaz Sharif University of Engineering and Technology (MNS-UET) and Dr Uzma Qureshi of the LCWU were earlier working on the coveted posts.
According to the notification issued by the HED, Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, Dr Muhammad Zubair, Dr Zafar Mueen Nasar and Dr Rukhsana Kausar will work as the VCs of UoS, MNS-UET, PU and LCWU respectively on the provisional basis. The fate of these acting VCs will highly depend on the next hearing of ICA that is scheduled on January 12, 2017. The competent authority to appoint the VCs will also be decided in the detailed judgment of the ICA.
Newly-inducted VC of LCWU Dr Rukhsana Kausar, while talking to Pakistan Today, said she would strive hard to bring LCWU among top 500 universities of the world while her emphasis will be on the academic excellence and research advancement. Dr Rukhsana, who has 31 year of experience in the higher education, was previously working as Institute of Applied Psychology and Centre for Clinical Psychology director at University of the Punjab. She did her Post-Doctorate in Clinical Neuro Rehabilitation from School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey and the Wolfson Neuro-rehabilitation Centre, Atkinson Morley Hospital, Wimbledon, St. George’s NHS Trust London, UK.
She told Pakistan Today that the state of higher education in Punjab is comparatively better than other provinces but there is still a need to work hard to compete with the international standards.
Meanwhile, Renowned economist and educationist Prof Dr Zafar Mueen Nasar has taken charge as Punjab University Vice Chancellor and will have to face daunting tasks in the coming days. The newly-appointed VC did his PhD from Kansas State University in Economics and has more than 33-years of experience in the fields of research and education. He has worked as visiting scholar at International Monetary Fund and also served as Director Policies at Ministry of Labor in Pakistan.
Dr Zafar had been working as College of Business Administration dean at American University, United Arab Emirates.
The new VC chaired the meeting of deans of all the faculties after taking charge of his office on Wednesday and also held a meeting with the minister for higher education department.
“The new VC will have to address the concerns of the faculty members as promotions of many teachers are pending for long,” PU Academic Staff Association General Secretary Dr Mehboob Hussain said, while talking to Pakistan Today.
