Educationists replace political versity heads

The Ministry for Higher Education of Afghanistan has adopted a unique strategy to appoint experienced educationists as vice chancellors of the universities and remove the political appointees in a peaceful manner.

Kabul Government sources said that the minister for Higher Education, Prof. Muhammad Sharif Fayiz has been able to hold elections in all the major universities of the war ravaged country and appoint the new administrators through the vote of the concerned teaching staff.

The Vice Chancellor of Kabul University, Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and Jalalabad have been replaced through the new set up, which also fixed 20 years of academic experience.

"This is my policy to bring the best of people with solid academic background to the fore through democratic process. I also want to tell the west that Afghans are able to bring democracy to their education institutions", the minister told a fried in Kabul recently.

Fayiz, a Jamiat-i-Islami nominee from Herat in Hamid Karzai's interim set up, the source said, is also against the government decision to keep Taliban out of the democratic process, in case, they want to participate in any future elections in Afghanistan.

"Democracy is the solution and Taliban have the right to be part of the democratic system", he said.

So far no resentment has been reported over the replacement of vice chancellors except the ex-VC of Nangarhar University in Jalalabad, Qazi Amin Waqad, who terms his resignation as the result of non-cooperative attitude of Governor Haji Abdul Qadeer and Corp. Commander, Hazrat Ali.

Qazi Amin Waqad, sources from Jalalabad said, was not in the run for the post of VC, because his nomination was not recommended by the required 10 percent of teachers of the institute.

This is one of the requirement that at least 10 percent of the teaching staff should propose the name of potential candidate to contest for the slot.

The same formula, Afghan sources said, would be applied to appoint VCs for universities in the central Bamiyan, where Iran had been funding and supporting the university, Charikar in Parwan province, Takhaar and in Khost in future as well.