LAHORE: Punjab Governor Baligh ur-Rehman, who is also chancellor of the public sector universities of the province, while taking notice of the professors’ appointments through foreign referees of the “candidates’ own choice”, has announced to reform the existing system of the appointments with too much dependence on referees’ opinion.
While addressing a ceremony at a hotel, the governor said he had come to know that for the selection of the foreign referees, names were also taken from the candidates, which indicates a big conflict of interest.
Rehman also referred to a meeting held at the Governor House recently and attended by Punjab Higher Education Commission chairperson, Higher Education Department secretary, Principal Secretary Governor House and others.
He said the meeting discussed how the selection process can be made more transparent. “I am really saddened to see some cases. There is partiality in favour of internal candidates and this is really a time to think over it. The candidates are themselves asked who should be their (foreign) referee — this is a big conflict of interest. This shouldn’t be like this. We are trying to adopt a mechanism to make this process transparent,” the governor said.
It is noteworthy that Punjab University School of Communication Studies Associate Professor Dr. Shabbir Sarwar has submitted a representation to the governor/chancellor regarding recent appointments of three professors at the school thorugh ‘referees of their choice’.
Complainant Dr. Shabbir Sarwar has claimed that candidates Savera Majeeb Shami, daughter of senior journalist and candidate Lubna Zaheer, who enjoys the support of PML-N Senator Irfan Siddiqui were appointed as professors through the foreign referees of their choice submitted by another collogue Dr. Ayesha Ashfaq.
He alleged that the Vice Chancellor, while misusing his authority, sent cases for evaluation to those foreign referees who were recommended by Dr Ayesha Ashfaq, wife of the host of Savera’s father’s talk show on a private TV channel. He submitted that both the foreign referees from Malaysia and USA were PhD and Post PhD supervisors of Dr Ayesha Ashfaq, who was PhD supervisor of candidate Dr Savera Shami. He said that Dr Ayesha Ashfaq has 15 joint publications with candidate Dr Savera and over 6 publications with both foreign referees. It is a clear case of conflict of interest.
Citing an example from the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan’s policy, he said that HEC does not award even a six-month foreign scholarship to a candidate in case the foreign referee is the supervisor of his/her local supervisor.
He submitted that in order to accommodate Dr Savera and Dr Lubna on one seat, surprisingly, both were declared as equal No. 1 in the three separate reports of foreign referees of their “choice”.
