Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr. Tariq Banuri on Friday revealed about Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s government universities. That they are the most expensive government universities in the country. HEC also blamed their unnecessary expenditure and overstaffing for it.
KPK Governor Shah Farman, who is also the chancellor of government universities in the province, chaired the meeting of the provincial and federal authorities.
The reason for the meeting was to solve the problems of universities. The meeting was attended by federal education minister Shafqat Mahmood. Among others was a special assistant to the KP chief minister on higher education Kamran Bangash. Furthermore, HEC chief Tariq Banuri and chairman of the prime minister’s task force science and technology Dr. Attaur Rehman were also part of that meeting.
HEC chairman Tariq Banuri insisted that the University of Peshawar spent over Rs300,000 on a student annually and those expenses were very high. He also complained about the excessive education expenditure at Gomal University Dera Ismail Khan and Agriculture University of Peshawar. The three universities were struggling to pay salary and pension due to the severe financial crisis.
The University of Peshawar had financially sunk. Due to the illegal or irregular appointments of 2,756 employees in the last decade. The UoP has been paying hundreds of millions of rupees every year to its employees in different heads.
The Governor’s House meeting discussed the procedure for the appointment of vice-chancellors. Which include qualifications, criteria, and role of the search and scrutiny committee, and the performance of VCs. The participants agreed to control the recruitment of non-teaching faculty in public sector universities in line with the ‘settled mechanism’.
The governor said the search and scrutiny committee should review the procedure for the selection and short-listing of VCs considering the fact that the VC’s position is a totally administrative one.
Dr. Atta ur Rehman to give more ‘weightage’ to the administrative capabilities of the candidate as basically, the VC post was an administrative one. He also insisted that the law should have room for the administrator as currently. Only an academician could become a VC.
The governor told the meeting that the posts of the university registrar, controller, provost, and treasurer should be filled by professionals instead of teachers.
Minister Shafqat Mahmood said a uniformed law should cover all universities of the country.
The participants included the HEC chairman and vice-chancellors of UoP, University of Engineering and Technology, Agriculture University, and Islamia College University Peshawar.
I am a freelance writer studied Biochemistry at the University of Agriculture Peshawar in the faculty of Nutrition sciences.