FAPUASA threatens to shut down universities in Punjab

The Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) has expressed serious reservation over the advertisement to fulfil vacancy of vice chancellor at University of Sahiwal in which the condition of PhD was not mandatory and has threatened to shut down universities in Punjab.
In an emergency meeting on Saturday FAPUASA Punjab President Professor Dr Javed Ahmad, Central Vice President Professor Dr Shoaib Ahmed, UET TSA President Professor Dr Sohail Aftab Qureshi, Vice President Professor Dr Zafar Noon, PU syndicate members Professor Dr Sajid Rashid and Dr Mahboob Hussain and others expressed serious concern over bureaucracy's move to appoint non-PhDs as vice chancellors of public sector universities.
They said that the advertisement was tantamount to contempt of court as it had violated Lahore High Court's decision regarding eligibility criteria of appointment of vice chancellors. They also said that some elements in bureaucracy were hiding true picture from the Punjab Chief Minister regarding appointment of vice chancellors.
They also said that in the previous meeting of FAPUASA with Punjab Higher Education Department and Punjab Higher Education Commission, it was decided that FAPUASA would submit their reservations in writing and later a meeting would be held in which controversial matters would be sorted out with mutual understanding. However, they said, the bureaucracy managed to get controversial criteria approved without taking relevant stakeholders into confidence and published the advertisement.
They said that the new eligibility criteria had ignored some very basic and vital parameters of measurement of professional excellence of an academic leader. For instance, they said, no marks were given for post-doc experience, no credit for PhD and M Phil research supervision, no weightage was given for university level teaching experience, no credit for membership/fellowship of national/international academic organizations/bodies and no weightage for academic research projects was given in the new criteria.
FAPUASA stated further that overall in the criteria, systematically space had been created for entry of non-academic managers which is not acceptable. They said the management experience must be relevant to academic/research experience. Pointing out technical deficiencies, they said that the basic qualification for the post of VC must be PhD in relevant field of university instead of preferably PhD. The federation of teachers said that in the criteria, additional marks for MA degree and lowering basic qualification of vice chancellorship would be ridiculous and unacceptable. They said that work experience was not clear that what kind of organization a candidate must have worked for? They suggested that the candidate must have 15 years of teaching/research experience.
They demanded that the government must consider academic/research leadership experience of candidates rather than non-academic/non-research leadership experience. FAPUASA said that no funding agency had extended Rs 500 million grant to individuals from academic/research organizations.
They also demanded that weightage must be given to establishing/restructuring academic organizations instead of controversially approved criteria of non-academic organizations otherwise irrelevant professionals would get shortlisted.
They said that the criterion regarding publications, honours and awards of the candidates clearly disregarded/ignored the spirit of distinguished research and publication record. They said that technically publications meant publication in high reputed JCR listed peer reviewed international journals or HEC recognized journals but this was not well defined. They said that similarly, book definition was not clear whether it was a poetry book that would be considered for getting credit.
Pointing out legal issues, they said that the criteria in question are unsustainable being violation of the judgment of honourable Lahore High Court PLD 2017 Lahore 289 (DB). Citing the judgment, they said that the federation could set standards in institutions of higher education under entry 12 of part II of Federal Legislative List.
They said that HEC Ordinance 2002, as it stood today, set minimum and non-binding guidelines for the appointment of vice chancellor in public sector universities. They said it was held in the judgment that provincial legislature had the power to set standards that was procedure and criteria for the selection of vice chancellor as long as they were not below the minimum and baseline standards set by the federation.
FAPUASA said that the criteria was contemptuous and against the spirit of the law laid down on the appointment of VC in the public sector universities.