KARACHI, Aug 11 The absence of a separate dean for Karachi University's faculty of education is the source of much discontent amongst teachers and students, as important administrative and academic decisions are continuously being delayed, Dawn has learnt.

It is important to mention here that the dean of the faculty of arts and special adviseor to KU's vice-chancellor, Dr Shamsuddin, holds the additional charge of dean of the faculty of education. He is also acting as the chairman of three departments and as the director of the Institute of Clinical Psychology and the Applied Economics Research Centre (AERC).

According to sources, the concentration of powers and responsibilities in one individual has led to many problems on the campus. The situation has developed mainly due to conflicts amongst teachers and the absence of associate professors and professors in the relevant departments and institutes.

At the moment, there are nine colleges of education affiliated with the university; two in the public sector (Jamia Millia Govt College of Education in Malir and Govt College of Education, F.B. Area) and the rest in the private sector. Over 1,200 students are getting education and training at these institutions, which award degrees of BEd and MEd.

Though the university also has an education department of its own, its course outline differs from what is taught at these colleges, where the focus is more on teaching methodologies and providing professional training. Besides, the students at KU's department of education get MA and BA degrees in education. The department is not part of the faculty of education, but rather of KU's arts faculty.

According to senior teachers at these colleges, the deanship of the education faculty was traditionally given to any senior professor of the two public sector colleges of education and this trend continued till the late 1990s, when Prof Dr Fatima Razi, a PhD in education who was then serving as chairperson at KU's department of education, was made the dean of the faculty of education.

This happened because the Higher Education Commission had set a condition that the dean would be a professor of grade 20, or a professor of grade 19 with a PhD, and there was nobody at the colleges to meet the criteria. Earlier, all professors who were appointed as deans from colleges were associate professors, as there was no post for a full professor at the time the colleges started operation F. B. Area College in the 1950s and Jamia Millia College in 1973.

After Dr Fatima Razi's retirement, Prof Dr Abu Zar Wajidi, the then dean of the faculty of arts, was given the additional charge of being the dean of the faculty of education in 2001, because the colleges still had no professor meeting the HEC criteria.

'Ad hoc arrangement causing problems'

Prof Dr Wajidi remained at the post until the end of 2003, when he was replaced by Prof Dr Shamsuddin, as the dean of the faculty of arts, who still continues to retain the charge.

At the moment, there are a couple of associate professors in grade 19 at public sector colleges working for over 20 years. However, there is only one with a PhD.

The absence of a full professor at these colleges, it is said, is not indicative of the lack of competency, but rather of long delays in appointments and promotions and the flaws in government mechanisms.

“The continued ad hoc arrangement is actually the main reason behind the many problems the colleges face today. There has been no meeting of the faculty since the KU started giving the additional charge of being the dean of the faculty of education to its dean of the arts faculty,” said one teacher at Jamia Millia college.

According to teachers, there are many important issues which have been pending for many years, only because the KU dean “never has time” due to his other engagements.

“We do have meetings of the board of studies twice a year, but there are many issues that can be resolved only by faculty members. For instance, the controversy over the prevailing system of examinations in professional colleges, which is a hotchpotch of semester and annual systems,” say teachers.

“Both bachelor's and master's programmes are continuously suffering in terms of delays at the start of new sessions and in the announcements of results, only due to the lack of supervision on the part of the dean,” they added.

They also complained about the dean's inaction over the first ever major decline in pass percentage in the BEd results announced this year. “The overall pass percentage has always been between 60 and 70. This is the first time in decades that the overall percentage dropped to 40 per cent,” remarked a retired teacher.

He further said that the dean should have taken notice of the matter before the results were announced, because he was the first to sign the results.

Another major problem is the revision of curriculum. It was last updated in 1995-96. Critics, however, called that measure a 'face-saving' step as it carried no substantial changes. The teachers claim that the former pro-vice-chancellor Prof Dr Ikhlaq Ahmed had called for modernising the curriculum of the professional colleges two years ago in a meeting, but there was no follow-up on the matter.

“The colleges of education are professional colleges and a dean should be appointed from these colleges as is the case with KU's medical and law faculties. The colleges have been in dire need of a curriculum revision for decades and there are many flaws in the present examination system. These inadequacies need to be removed as quickly as possible,” said Professor M. Athar Ali Khan, former dean of the faculty of education and principal of the Hashmat Memorial College of Education in Gulshan-i-Iqbal.

Talking to Dawn, Prof Dr Pirzada Qasim, KU vice-chancellor, defended the decision of appointing the dean of the arts faculty as the dean of the faculty of education, saying “No associate professor, but only a full professor can hold the position of a dean, according to the university code. The appointments of associate professors as deans in the past were wrong. Our future plan is to set up a chair of the education faculty on the campus, for which senior professors would be hired, and it is likely that a dean should be chosen from among those.”