Senator Irfan Siddiqui chairs the Senate Standing Committee on Federal Education and Professional Training, which met today at Parliament House.
The session began with a discussion of the Vice-Chancellor’s compliance report on the decisions and recommendations taken during the last meeting on June 8, 2023, regarding the “examination issue faced by Law students at Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan.”
The Vice-Chancellor of BZU Multan informed the committee that an internal committee had been formed to address the students’ long-standing complaint. The Vice-Chancellor promised to provide the internal committee’s conclusions within 15 days.
The Chairman of the Standing Committee, Senator Irfan Siddiqui, expressed great concern over the delay in addressing the matter and decided to form a sub-committee led by Senator Rana Maqbool Ahmed to speed the settlement process.
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Furthermore, the committee considered the Ministry’s compliance report on the situation of Chairs overseas, which provided thorough facts such as the number of chairs, empty positions, duration of vacancies, and the causes for them. The committee was informed by Ministry officials that the process of filling the vacant Chair in Uzbekistan was nearing completion.
However, no candidate met the qualifications for the position of Chair in Iran. Discussions were underway with Columbia University in order to overcome the obstacles to the appointment of a Chair there. The Chairman requested the ministry to submit a university-by-university breakdown of empty chairs abroad, as well as the causes for the lengthy vacancies. This subject was tabled until the next committee meeting for further discussion.
A public appeal about the filing of a complete report in accordance with the recommendations made during the June 8, 2023 meeting concerning the non-compliance with the reinstatement of terminated employees was also addressed by the committee. According to ministry authorities, a committee was formed to investigate this situation, and it had completed its deliberations.
Three of the 33 terminated National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) employees withdrew their charges. The Higher Education Commission (HEC) was asked to verify the degrees of 30 employees, and it was determined that 27 of them had counterfeit master’s degrees.
The remaining three terminated employees earned their degrees from unrecognised colleges. Following extensive deliberation, the committee agreed to evaluate the three employees’ cases on humanitarian grounds.
The committee also held long deliberations about the dismissal of Contractual Montessori Teachers (BPS-17) employed by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) in Islamabad.
The FDE Director-General stated that the personnel in BPS-16 and 17 were within the jurisdiction of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), which had advertised the jobs and had previously selected qualified candidates for permanent employment.
The DG also indicated that contractual employees had the opportunity to apply and compete through the FPSC, which they did not take advantage of. The services of these contractual employees could not be continued because there were no vacant positions in the department. The fired teachers claimed that the department should have sent these employees’ cases to the FPSC for regularisation of their services on a one-post, one-candidate basis rather than advertising them for open competition.
The Chair believed that the department’s actions constituted criminal negligence and that dismissing the services of these dedicated workers would have a significant impact on their lives.
Following extensive deliberation, the Chair decided to postpone consideration of the topic until the next committee meeting and directed the Secretary of the Federal Education Department to attend the next meeting in order to achieve an amicable conclusion.
Senators Prof. Dr. Mehr Taj Roghani, Fawzia Arshad, Engr Rukhsana Zuberi, Rana Maqbool Ahmed, Jam Mahtab Hussain Dahar, Mushtaq Ahmed, Molvi Faiz Muhammad, and senior officials from the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training attended the committee meeting.
