MULTAN: A joint meeting of the officials of Higher Education Commission and Bahauddin Zakariya University will be held on Oct 13 to finalise the award process of PhD scholarships under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) which was put on hold by the HEC a couple of days back, Dawn has learnt.

On Oct 4, the HEC directed the university not to award or send 45 scholars aboard who were selected by university`s selection boards held on June 28-29 and Sept 3-4 without the prior approval of the commission.

An inquiry team of HEC visited the university to probe various matters, including the allegations of selection of candidates forscholarships in violation of the criteria.

As many as 100 foreign scholarships were given to the university under the PSDP. The BZU administration had named the scholarship programme after former prime minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani who had approved 100 scholarships, allocating Rs1 billion.

Sources said the BZU administration advertised the scholarships in 2014 and 2015 with different eligibility criteria of 16 years and 18 years, respectively.

They said the age limit for a regular faculty member was set at 40 years and for other candidates was 35 years besides having CGPA (30utof4,4 outof5and50utof6) under semester system and only one second division in annual system during the entire educational career.

They said it was specifically mentioned that the selected candidates would initially be appointed as lecturer and after completion of PhD would be promoted to assistant professor.

But many scholarships had beenawarded to people who were either overage, having two second divisions or were already working as assistant professor, they said.

The sources alleged that the university administration in order to oblige some `favourites` first changed the advertised eligibility criteria by using a dummy/nonstatutory panel (Deans Committee) against rules as the BZU Act 1975 stipulated that all the power lay with the Senate to bring about any change in the already approved statutes.

They said the deans committee resolved that the second division in BS degree of any candidate should not be counted twice despite the fact that the university had since long been counting a division in BS twice.

They said the committee declared the candidates having second division in BS ineligible while counting it two second divisions. The formula of counting two second divisions was also adopted in previous selection boards.

They said the changes were made to accommodate a few candidates while criteria for equatingGPA/CGPA with percentage was also changed by the committee instead of Academic Council as being the proper authority which has to be further ratified by Syndicate and Senate to allegedly give `undue favour to some influential candidates.

They said in order to give legal cover to the decisions of deans committee, the approval for its minutes was obtained from selection board which was not the competent authority despite the fact no authority or officer could change the criteria after it was advertised.

They said four candidates were awarded scholarships in the subject of psychology by two selection boards. One candidate was selected in second selection board despite the fact she was rejected in first selection.

Another candidate was selected by a selection board of which her sister was also member being the chairperson of the department while she is assistant professor instead of lecturer.

They said in the business administration department thescholarship was awarded to seven candidates. Of them four were already rejected by the first selection board.

The sources said for commerce scholarship, two candidates having masters degree in business administration were selected despite the fact it was mentioned in the advertisement that the candidate should have a masters degree in commerce.

Similarly, another aspirant who has masters in environmental engineering was awarded the scholarship for electrical engineering.

A candidate was declared ineligible for architectural engineering scholarship on the basis of relevancy as she had a civil engineering degree. An overage assistant professor was awarded scholarship in telecommunication.

The university administration is of the view that no irregularity was done.

`We will clear all the observations raised by the HEC as all the scholarships have been awarded on merit,` university spokesman Dr Abdul Qadoos Sohalb said.