Women education has always been a challenge for backward and under-developed areas like Balochistan. However, the new provincial Governor Balochistan is hell bent on removing the Vice Chancellor of the only women’s university of the province in an apparent bid to replace her with a ‘blue-eyed’.
Official documents available with Daily Times reflect that the Governor Secretariat Balochistan advertised the post of Vice Chancellor Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University (SBKWU) with specific changes in the eligibility criteria for the post allegedly to favor a ‘blue-eyed’.
According to the document available with Daily Times, the advertisement for the vacancy of Vice Chancellor clearly depicted a change in the criteria and most questionable point is that there is no requirement of the experience as only mentioned years.
Besides, the second notable point is change in the age limit, which is mentioned as maximum 62 years and these changes are seemingly an attempt by Justice (R) Amanullah Khan Yasinzai to accommodate some blue-eyed person.
Sardar Bahadur Khan Women’s University is Pakistan’s third and Balochistan’s first Women’s University which was established back in 2004. The fundamental purpose of the university is to focus at the progress and development not only in the field of education but to make student independent and confident to adapt themselves to professional fields or to set up their own business as entrepreneur.
The documents show that the post was advertised on May 22, 2019, some six months before the expiry of the tenure of the incumbent Vice Chancellor Professor Dr Rukhsana Jabeen ie November l9, 2019.
Dr Rukhsana Jabeen has been credited for leaving no stone unturned to take the institution among the leading educational institutes of the country in a short span of time.
Ironically, the advertisement mentioned that a PhD degree holder is required for the VC post with no specific mentioning of experience and research publications. It was only mentioned that the VC should have listening, speaking and writing and analytical and problem solving skills.
Despite limited human and material resources and unfavorable circumstances, the SBKWU under the leadership of Dr Rukhsana has made remarkable achievements which could be judged from upraised number of girl students. Besides, the university has now grown into six faculties with 31 department running, PhD, MPhil, Masters and BS programs in multiple disciplines.
During 2013 when the tragic incidents of the bomb blast in one of university’s students’ bus brought calamity and the university was shut down for a couple of months as parents of girl students refused to send their daughters to the university. However, it was Dr Rukhsana who went from house to house and convinced parents to send back their daughters to the university.
Due to her performance, previous governor Mohammad Khan Achakzai had given one-year extension in tenure of Dr Rukhsana as VC SBKWU from November l9, 20l8 to November 18, 20l9. But this extension was not limited to Dr Rukhsana as vice chancellors of four public sector universities as senior PhD scholars are not eager to serve in Balochistan due to law and order situation.
Interestingly, Lasbela University VC was given fine-year extension after completing first tenure while BUITMS VC was given four extensions.
More interestingly, Governor’s Secretariat had advertised the post of VC University of Balochistan (UoB) along with VC of SBKWU but the advertisement of UoB VC was withdrawn immediately afterwards and only now the VC of SBKWU is up for grabs.
Similarly, the current governor Balochistan has further extended the tenure of the VC of UoB, but ironically no extension has been given to VC Dr Rukhsana’s tenure despite her tremendous achievements.
This is also to be noticed that according to the SBK University’s Act, second tenure of the Vice Chancellor is given through university’s senate committee, only when first tenure is completed. Vice Chancellor Dr Rukhsana got second tenure, according to the University Act, five-year tenure which consists of three broken extensions.
According to the Act, if the governor feels the need of abolishing the tenure of a Vice Chancellor, he can do so only after getting it approved in the senate meeting in context of huge mismanagement, corruption, or on the medical grounds.
It is pertinent to mention here that the policy of incumbent Governor Balochistan may reverse the hard earned gains of Dr Rukhsana if he pursues his policy of nepotism and favoritism by appointing an unqualified, inexperienced blue-eyed person on a responsible position.
Despite repeated efforts, Governor Balochistan Dr Amanullah Yasinzai chose not to respond to the queries sent to him on his cell phone.
