The controversies surrounding the Higher Education Commission (HEC) seem to be never-ending as it has been recently revealed that the commission has failed to establish nine ‘Seerat Chairs’ in public sector universities across the country to deal with the issues of terrorism, extremism and other problems faced by Pakistan.
The decision to establish ‘Seerat Chairs’ was taken by HEC back in 2014, but ironically, no one had been selected so far, thus indicating the non-seriousness of the commission to deal with the bane of terrorism.
The main purpose behind establishing ‘Seerat Chairs’ was to counter the prevalent challenges being faced by the country and society, or at least to neutralise the threat levels of the same challenges in the light of the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
However, the details obtained from HEC showed that not a single head of ‘Seerat Chairs’ had been selected hitherto, despite the lapse of several years, which speak volumes of the commission’s incompetence.
According to details, the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) approved the project titled, ‘Establishment of Seerat Chairs in Public Sector Universities’, in its meeting held on October 3, 2014, at a capital cost of Rs 189.980 million. Later, the project was revised by the CDWP in its meeting held on May 3, 2017, at a capital cost of Rs 410.081 million.
Under the project, the nine ‘Seerat Chairs’ that were planned to be established in public sector universities, included interfaith and communal harmony, education and knowledge, social justice and welfare, human rights and social justice, leadership and governance, sustainable development, business commerce and property rights, global peace and gender studies, and rights of women.
According to the revision, an endowment fund of Rs 20 million would be provided to each chair for financial sustainability and to support research and development (R&D) activities of the chairs, besides providing a two-year operational cost for the same. Moreover, plans to develop a Women Seerat Centre in Lahore were also finalised.
The proposed chairs would be required to develop human resource in the field of Islamic knowledge and wisdom, especially by focusing on Islamic learning in its true forms, besides encouraging research culture among Islamic scholars and its application in the society.
Another responsibility of the chairs would be to produce quality Islamic scholars/researchers and increase publications in the field of Islamic learning through the promotion of a research-based culture in connection with Islam.
In addition, the proposed chairs would produce a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis focusing on the prevalent challenges in the country in general and the society in specific, identify the modern socio-cultural and socio-psychological patterns, propose socio-academic research themes, get intellectuals on board for standard academic research on proposed themes, identify a practically applicable similarity index from the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) from direct sources and interpretations of scholars, enlist recommendations in the light of the standard research conducted on proposed themes to counter the prevalent challenges or to neutralise the threat levels of the same challenges.
When contacted, HEC Director Media Ayesha Ikram said that possession of land measuring four kanals in the name of HEC had been taken from the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) for the establishment of Women Seerat Centre in Lahore.
She said that M/S New Vision Consulting firm had been hired for master planning, detail engineering/architectural design, bidding documents, construction supervision, and monitoring of Women Seerat Centre.
Ayesha further said that only Dr Qibla Ayaz was selected for the Interfaith and Communal Harmony chair and was posted in the University of Peshawar. Unfortunately, that chair fell vacant after his appointment as Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) chairman.
Talking about the remaining eight chairs, she said that an advertisement was floated on January 17, 2016, however, no suitable candidate was found. But upon the project steering committee’s recommendation, the post of Seerat Chair head was re-advertised in national dailies on October 9, 2016, she added.
“Applications of 47 applicants were reviewed on the agreed score card of the scrutiny committee and 24 candidates were shortlisted. The cases of the shortlisted persons were presented in the meeting of the steering committee held on May 18, 2017,” she added.
She said that the Selection Committee in its meeting held on July 10-11, 2017 interviewed 24 candidates and selected three candidates against three themes i.e. Dr Shahid Parveen, Assistant Professor, Department of Islamic Studies, University of Punjab, Lahore, Gender Studies and Rights of Women; Dr Muhammad Ilyas, Assistant Professor, International Islamic University, Islamabad, Global Peace and Dr Muhammad Ashraf Professor (Arabic & Islamic Studies), University of Lahore for the theme of Human Rights and Social Sciences, Lahore.
However, she said that all have yet to join due to their personal issues due to which a meeting of the steering committee was scheduled in the end of March, 2018 to resolve the issue.