Edwardes College BoG meeting postponed

PESHAWAR: The meeting of the Board of Governors of Edwardes College Peshawar was postponed before it could be started formally only to be held on January 4 wherein shortlisted candidates for the principal of the college would be interviewed and an appropriate one among them would be selected for the prestigious position. The meeting was supposed to be held on Tuesday and all the members had gathered at the Governor’s House for the meeting.

But the governor expressed his dismay over the non-preparation for the meeting and he did not turn up to attend the meeting.

Therefore, the meeting was postponed and the next meeting was fixed for January 4 with strict directives to scrutinize the proposed list of aspirants and call the shortlisted candidates to the board’s meeting for an interview.

Sources privy to the meeting told The News that only a list of candidates was provided to members of the board just two hours prior to the meeting. The list of five candidates had been submitted by the Diocese of Peshawar to the Higher Education Department (HED).

All the candidates belonged to Christian Community with two hailing from FC College Lahore and one each from NUST, Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad and Fatima Jinnah University for Women. The candidates were Prof Dr Peter John, Dr Rohama Gill, Dr Sharoon Hanook, Dr Farzand Masih and Oubaid S Kamal, the sources said. One among the candidates was not even eligible for the position as the minimum qualification for the office is a PhD and the candidate was having only an MPhil degree, the sources said.

“None of the candidates had been called for an interview. Only their documents were presented before the board. We could not appoint a person for such a prized office on the basis of mere papers,” one of the members of the board told The News.

He said the more than five members’ list should be provided to the HED which should conduct proper scrutiny of the candidates and present a list of short-listed candidates to the board.

The governor, who is also chairman of the board, was reportedly not happy with the performance of the HED on the matter concerned.

The HED, however, shifted the blame to the acting principal of the college, who is ex-officio secretary of the board.

The office of the principal Edwardes College has been lying vacant for the last more than two years.

The Supreme Court in its decision about the college had given the verdict that the Lahore Diocese Trust Association (LTDA) would recommend a panel of candidates for the office and the Board of Governors would choose one among them.

However, the Diocese of Peshawar reportedly in consultation with the LTDA recommended the five names after the last meeting of the board held on November 15 wherein it had been strictly directed that the principal should be appointed within two weeks.

Some reports suggested that the acting management of the college was using tactics to delay the appointment of a full-time principal.