Three major government universities based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been operating without any financial and administrative authority since the retirement of the vice-chancellors of the respective institutes for over a month ago.
Three major government universities based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been operating without any administrative and financial authority since the retirement of the vice-chancellors of the respective institutes for over a month ago.
As per the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act 2012, a pro-vice-chancellor must take power as the head of the university just after the retirement of the regular vice-chancellor of the university.
The incumbency of VCs of the University of Engineering and Technology, Charsadda, Peshawar, Bacha Khan University, and Women’s University, Mardan, had retired on 8th of June and the universities had not elected for administrative heads since then due to the pro-VC vacancies.
They said the appointment of pro-VC to the UET was in process at the higher education department, while no action had been taken for the appointment of pro-VCs to BKUC and WUM.
Some officials claimed the higher education department had initiated a summary 20 days ago for the extension of the services of VCs of five universities. The other two universities include Khyber Medical University and University of Swabi.
The officials also said that the incumbency of the KMU VC would come to end in July, while the VC of the University of Swabi had already been working on an ‘acting charge’ until the arrival of a permanent VC.
The selection of new VC is based on a summary conducted by the staff and approved by authorities. The summary was returned to the HED by the chief secretary with observation that under the KP Universities Act, 2012, the provincial cabinet was the authority to decide the extension in the service of a VC and such appointments.
The HED later developed a summary and forwarded it to the establishment department for the cabinet’s approval and the summary’s approval might possibly take days or weeks.
A senior teacher demanded of the government to accelerate the process of extending the services of VCs saying the administrative and financial affairs have been stalled.
The teacher stressed on the immediate need of new VC by informing the mid-term examinations of the final semester would start by the third or fourth week of June and it would be strange to hold examinations in the absence of the VC of the university.