GUJRAT:The University of Gujrat (UoG) is facing stagnation in administrative and academic decisions for the last couple of years.

Vice Chancellor Dr Shabbar Atiq had stopped the recruitment process soon after he assumed the charge by terming the UoG service statues unapproved and unlawful. However, previous vice chancellors recruited the faculty by following the same service statues and no reservations or audit paras were recorded in previous reports.

However, due to non- provision of seats for the staff of two most important sections of varsity including Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) and Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC), present VC declared the entire statues improper and started the process from ground zero which is still under process for the last one and a half year.

At present, key university seats including Registrar, Controller Examination, Treasurer, Deans of Faculty of Computing and Faculty of Business Administration, Directors of ORIC, QEC, Student Services, IT, Administration and Coordination, Security, Transport are vacant for the last two years and being run on an acting charge basis.

On academic side, the varsity has only seven full professors and more than 13 departments do not have even regular chairpersons and day- to- day affairs are dealt by temporary heads.

The varsity is facing steep decline in annual admission for the fall 2020 as there is 35 per cent decrease in annual intake of students. The varsity has yet to start the second cycle of post-graduate admissions which are already delayed due to non-availability of (No Objection Certificate) NOC from the Higher Education Commission (HEC).

The main campus buildings and transport are in bad shape due to absence of maintenance and repair work. Around a dozen of vehicles including buses and cars are not operational due to non-availability of tyres, batteries and engine overhauling issues. The sanitation condition is also getting worse as students of the Nawaz Sharif Medical College (NSMC) – a constituent college of UoG -- had already staged a protest demonstration in this regard a few weeks ago.

The varsity has failed to get any position on the merit table of World University Ranking for 2021 recently announced by The Times Higher Education (THE). Many of the newly developed HEI in the last two decades like Abdul Wali Khan University, Mardan (established in 2009), The Government College Women University Faisalabad (2013), Government College University Faisalabad (2002), University of Sargodha (2002) worked hard and secured their right position in the international ranking. In contrast, the University of Gujrat (2004) is unable to be listed at any place in THE world ranking.

VC Shabbar Atiq said that the approval of statutes of UoG and some other universities of Punjab had been pending. Asked how the varsity could proceed for the recruitment of registrar in the last couple of months without approval of Statute, he replied that the statute for registrar had already been approved but the final approval of the shortlisted name had been delayed as the HEC had been trying to set a uniform criterion for the recruitment of registrar UoG and some other universities of province.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2020