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Two foreign KEMU teachers seek transfer to UHS
LAHORE, Sept 3: Two foreign faculty members of the King Edward Medical
University (KEMU) are unwilling to continue what they call for lack of research
facilities there to exploit their potential.
In a letter to Higher
Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Prof Attaur Rehman obtained, Prof
Khan Z. Shirani and Prof Tajuddin Hasan Kirmani have requested him to transfer
them to the University of Health Sciences (UHS) so that they could contribute
more effectively.
Both foreign nationals had been hired under the HEC
Foreign Faculty Hiring Programme.
Mr Shirani, Prof of Surgery in
KEMU\Mayo Hospital, says in his letter: "To my assessment, the work environment,
including research facilities, equipment and support structure in place at the
KEMU is inhospitable, if not out-rightly hostile, to education and research due
to onerous and illogical controls, vestiges of industrial era and most
undesirable for today's information age and services-based intellectual
economy."
"In order to be productive to my potential I need a change of
environment, realizing though it would rather be preposterous on my part owing
to my limited exposure and experience in this country to assume that an ideal
research facility does not exist."
"During my recent visit to the Health
Sciences Center (HSC), Lahore, I found the teaching and learning environment
there to be conducive to research work. Had I been assigned to the HSC I believe
I would have been more useful in advancing the HEC agenda of improving the
standards of postgraduate medical education in Pakistan"
British national
Tajuddin Hasan Kirmani, Prof\advisor, faculty of Allied Health Sciences and
project director of KEMU's Department of Nursing and Paramedics, says in his
letter: "I have found that the work environment, including physical facilities
and support structure at the KEMU is not conducive to any meaningful nursing
education or research."
"I believe had I been assigned to the UHS,
Lahore, I would be more productive in my efforts to increase the depth and
breadth of existing nursing education." Prof Kirmani has requested the HEC
chairman to transfer his services to the UHS.
A KEMU spokesman said that the foreign faculty teachers were not taking interest in teaching
assignments and their focus was only on research.
He said when the
vice-chancellor took stock of the situation and 'pressed' them that their center
of attention should be on teaching they started complaining about such
things.
A foreign faculty member under the HEC programme was receiving
over Rs200,000 salary per month and a local professor was getting Rs50,000, he
said. Dawn
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