–Issues new appointment letters to visiting lecturers to present them as regular faculty of computer science department
–Compels select students to give tailored responses to visiting NCEAC officials
KARACHI: Iqra University’s North Campus underwent a major window-dressing exercise ahead of the visit of the National Computing Education Accreditation Council (NCEAC) on Feb 4, to gain accreditation for its computer science department, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Informed sources told Pakistan Today that one of NCEAC’s requirements for granting accreditation to the university was that the head of the computer sciences department should be from a computer science background.
“In order to fool the visiting officials, the university decided to bring in a new man – one with relevant qualification – to play the role of the head of department during the NCEAC team’s visit,” sources said.
Another requirement was that the institute must have at least seven full-time faculty members with one of them having a PhD. “To meet this requirement, the administration issued new appointment letters to visiting lecturers to show the inspection team that they were regular faculty members,” they claimed.
“Furthermore, most of the administrative staff and the students, who did not belong to the computer science department were given a day off on the day of the NCEAC team’s visit. Only about 200 students were allowed into the university and they were instructed to give tailored responses to the questions of the visiting officials,” the sources further claimed.
They added that NCEAC demands that any university that wishes for accreditation should have a separate floor with dedicated facilities for the computer science department “but Iqra University has everything going on under the same roof — from business administration to engineering, and everything in between”, the sources claimed.
Some faculty members and students, on the condition of anonymity, told Pakistan Today that “such practices have been going on for years”.
They said that the university had pulled a similar stunt to gain accreditation from the Pharmacy Council of Pakistan, adding that when some faculty members and administration officials objected to these malpractices, they were jokingly told that “Quaid e Azam will handle it” – implying that officials of these regulatory and accreditation bodies can be bribed as well.
Pakistan Today made repeated attempts to obtain Iqra University’s Vice Chancellor’s comment on the issue through email and text messages but he did not respond.
However, Dr Muhammad Zubair Ahmed, the dean of the computer science department, in a brief response denied the allegations.
On the other hand, the NCEAC representatives told Pakistan Today that they have a mechanism to deal with such issues but “they usually call in an investigation only after such a malpractice has been reported to them”.
