Those familiar with the norms and organisational culture of Karachi University know that it often takes months, even years in some cases, to issue an identity card or an enrolment card; both are issued separately by different departments under different procedures. Many students receive their enrolment or identity cards well past their graduation from the university, thanks to the inefficient administration comprising people with pathetic work ethics.
It is against this background that one should see the chaos at the entrance points to the university following the recent terrorist attack outside the KU’s Confucius Institute in the wake of which the security staff refused to allow anyone inside without ‘proper documentation’, meaning the identity or enrolment cards.
All this, including the terrorist attack itself, could have been avoided had the university administration issued identity and enrolment cards to students on time, and kept a vigilant eye on who entered the campus. Amid this chaos and inefficiency, the greatest loss is that of the students.
The one thing the KU administration is good at is in matters related to promotions and benefits. There have been instances of retrospective promotion of retired and even deceased employees. The university bureaucracy is short of qualified people, and it appears to be resolving this issue through promotion of clerks, superintendents and assistants. As a result, the middle cadre of officials has disappeared from the university bureaucracy, which is the very group of officials that ensures smooth running of affairs, like, say, the issuance of identity cards to students.
It is high time the higher authorities and the university officials realised the actual cost of their unprofessionalism and rather blatantly self-serving lethargy.
FARHAN AHMED
KARACHI
