ISLAMABAD: A search committee headed by Federal Minister for Education Rana Tanveer Hussain will conduct interviews of shortlisted candidates for the appointment of chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC) from Monday.

The interview process will continue for three days. Sources in the education ministry told Dawn that 140 candidates had applied for the post and 50 of them were shortlisted.

The post of chairman HEC fell vacant on May 29 after the retirement of Dr Tariq Banuri, who completed his four-year term.

Surprisingly, the ministry did not start the process of hiring a new chairman on time and even ads inviting applications was published just a week before the retirement of Dr Banuri.

Post fell vacant on May 29 after retirement of Dr Tariq Banuri

When the ministry knew that the HEC chairman will complete its tenure on May 29, why this process was not initiated in March-April for timely appointment, said an official of the HEC.

“This is unfortunate that around three weeks after the retirement of the chairman, the ministry is going to conduct interviews now,” said the official. He said an inquiry should be conducted to fix responsibility so that in future all such appointments are made on time.

However, an officer of the Ministry of Education said acting charge of the chairman HEC had already been given to Executive Director Dr Shaista Sohail by the ministry on June 15 after approval of the prime minister.

The process of interview is going to start on Monday and after three days the committee will send three names to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for picking one of them as the new head of the HEC.

The HEC is a regulator of 235 universities – 141 in the public and 94 in the private sector. It annually gets over Rs100 billion as development and non-development budget. However, currently, it has no regular chairman while its executive director (ED), who is looking after the affairs of the chairperson, is also working on a temporary basis.

She retired last year after reaching the age of superannuation but her tenure was extended twice, initially for three months. Later, she was allowed to continue working until the appointment of a new ED, whose appointment has also been facing delay.

The post of ED fell vacant in 2018 after resignation of Dr Arshad Ali. Later, HEC twice advertised the post but could not fill it.

In 2020, the federal government posted Dr Shaista Sohail, a civil servant, as the ED. Earlier this year, Dr Tariq Banuri had advertised the post of ED and called a selection board meeting but due to litigation he could not make the appointment.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2022