ISLAMABAD: Professor Dr Mohammad Ali Shah serves as vice chancellor of Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), a top-ranked educational institution in the country’s capital.
Before taking QAU to the top, he steered Government College University (GCU), Faisalabad as its VC. He has also served as registrar of Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan.
At present, he is chairperson of the Committee of Vice Chancellors. In his capacity as the chairperson of this committee, he fought a long battle for autonomy of universities when the removed Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairperson Tariq Banuri was allegedly rolling back progress the country had made in the field of higher education.
Here he speaks to Bol News about his career in education.
Q: When you joined this university, it was in a struggling phase. Your predecessor was almost ousted due to continuous protests against him by students and faculty alike. How was it for you at the start?
Basically, I passed through a process to become professor and then the vice chancellor. There were no shortcuts on my way.
In all my career I have been a leader of academic staff, winning many elections. Several of my colleagues were already working as vice chancellors of universities. I myself had an experience of being vice chancellor of GCU Faisalabad.
Indeed, it was challenging at the start.
As you pointed out, faculty and students were up in arms. However, then I brought them to the table and kept an ear out for them. My way to solve tensions is simple; you need to convince me with logic when presenting your argument.
Once convinced, I will be the last person to step back from your demand. Hence, we put the university back to normalcy through dialogue and policymaking.
Q: Students at this university come from all over the country and from all class backgrounds. They are seldom influenced by political parties like in other universities. They represent different cultures of Pakistan. How do you look at this aspect of the university?
I respect the different cultures of Pakistan. Sufi poetry and folklore are my weaknesses. Proximity to QAU with Bari Imam shrine makes it unique. For the first time in the history of the university, I set up a directorate of students’ affairs. It aims to facilitate students in organising their programmes.
In addition, the student facilitation centre had also been established with technical and financial support of TİKA-Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.
You will be amused to know that a very colourful Diwali festival is held here in which faculty also participates. This is the face of Pakistan.
Moreover, most of the faculty members of this university are also its alumni.
They feel a bond with their alma mater and commit themselves to its excellence. It is because of their commitment that we are on top of the list. I have also set up the directorate of academics in the university to facilitate faculty members in resolving their problems.
Q: The university did not have a proper boundary. It is often in the news for having land disputes. What steps have you taken to fix this problem?
When the university was set up, the authorities concerned did not remove houses of some people, although the land was acquired legally.
The housing units had to be removed gradually but the authorities concerned did not do the job. Now they have become a security risk. In my tenure, I made sure that no new illegal structure pops up on campus land. Actions were taken against the encroachers.
Some of them have political backing.
I have set up the directorate of estate to deal with this issue permanently. The city administration is cooperating in this respect. We hope that the process that I have set in motion will lead to solving this problem once and for all.
Q: QAU students have a track of acquiring important positions in government offices. But it is seen as a result of their individual efforts. The alumni regret the absence of a systematic effort by the university to harness their talent. What do you say about it?
Yes, it had been so in the past. However, things are now changing. We have set up a career counselling and placement office to guide students on their career paths and the places they can get jobs from. In addition, we also have set up a business incubation centre for the students interested in launching business start-ups.
Q: Tell us the secret to QAU’s academic success. It is not an elite institute and it is unlike those institutes that bathe in the rain of funds. How then did you manage to get on top?
QAU ranked top in Pakistan by Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022. The university had also significantly improved QS Ranking from 454th to 378th by QS World University Ranking 2022.
Recently another prestigious ranking agency, Times World University Ranking, placed QAU among the top 100 Asian universities. We have set up new departments. Recently, longstanding accreditation issues of the programmes of Department of Law and Department of Pharmacy were solved.
The secret is we make sure that merit prevails in recruiting the faculty and admitting students. We have signed almost 70 MoUs with different academic, research institutions, and corporate entities for acquiring quality in research work.
To acknowledge talent, scholarships worth Rs142.74 million were distributed among students in the financial year 2019-20 and Rs111.85m in FY 2018-19.
Last but not the least, we tell our teachers that they are not teachers only in the classroom. Their teaching should reflect in the personality of students when they are out of class and in society.
