6. 1. Powers and functions
According to participants, a VC wears multiple hats during his service. As part of the Chancellor’s Office (CO), he provides executive leadership in assisting the CO in planning, developing, organizing, directing and controlling academic programs, policies, procedures and guidelines. He supervises deans and directors in evaluating and approving their recommendations for faculty hiring, promotion and tenure. A VC oversees budget preparation for the academic programs, allocates funds and manages resources to achieve academic goals and objectives. He provides leadership in creating and maintaining academic standards and policies. He serves as Chief Advisor to the Chancellor (President or Governor). A VC has a team of appropriate professional administrators, directors, deans, chair persons and heads of departments (HDs) for his assistance. A successful VC, as one respondent R3 said, “Vice-Chancellor maintains substantial contact with administrators like directors and deans through Board of Governors, syndicates and Academic Council meetings. The Vice-Chancellor can convene meetings of committees, bodies and authorities whenever he considers necessary. He can speak at any forum but has no right to vote”. Hence, it is VC’s duty to ensure that government directives, provisions of act, statutes, ordinance and regulations are being observed in decisions of authorities, bodies and committees. He supervises the recommendations of Selection Board on the observance of merit in recruitments and promotions. He can undo decisions of authorities, bodies and committees inconsistent with the act, statutes or regulations. The VC can take any decision during the emergency but is bound to communicate its justification to the Chancellor or University Management Council (MC). The VC is the appointing and disciplinary authority for teachers, yet if his decision affects any teacher, then a notice with reasonable time must be given to the victim to appeal to the MC. The VC has right to initiate inspection of any person, body, building, laboratory, library, workshop and equipment at university or affiliated college if the matter relates to finance of university. In the case of nonprofit organizations the VC or Rector performs his functions by the general policy guidelines laid down by Board of Governors (BGs). These guidelines must be accessible to the general public through the Internet. Non-government organizations running universities in developing countries often hide these guidelines and modify the sentences according to their needs in court cases. Members of BGs are appointed on the racial basis to maintain their absolute majority. This ethnic majority only recommends like-minded fellows to sustain their absolute monopoly. This language, race and religion based cartelism is also visible in public sector universities and the government institutes (Tan, Sharma 2013).
Some participants like R2 and R5 compared the roles and perceptions about these roles in East and West. R2 added, “Here VC and his role means powers and duties, whereas they (European universities) focus on the role and responsibilities”. Of course, both phrases “powers and duties” and “role and responsibilities” mean the same but leave impressions of “Imperialism and Slavery” on reader’s mind. Our words reveal whatever we hide in hearts. Words “powers” and “duties” are extreme words reflecting inherited slavery. India-Pakistan executives struggle hard for executive posts and then exercise every sub-clause to avail the opportunity. A VC’s position means different to different incumbents in East and West. Asians VCs look to Western universities for collaborations to upgrade their ranks, but they look to Asian universities to monitor their state of the art and earn money. Western universities have started dual and joint degree programs with Asian universities to make money using their internationally recognized names.
The Chancellor is a political figurehead in commonwealth countries but a chief executive in other nations. Universities having a large number of affiliated colleges may employ VCs for them. The Chancellor and VC’s jobs mean different things to different incumbents. As R4 said,
“everybody understands the role and responsibilities of Vice Chancellors but the part they play does reflect their mindsets. It is quite dangerous to be purely a chief executive as at heart it is all about teaching and research”.
Universities have grown regarding their economy, yet they are a long way from being an academic cottage industry. Universities are cash rich institutes, but their major focus is to prepare skilled human resources to bring social change. Community respects institutes of higher learning, but if one sees the deep dark march of follies, then he/she will quickly realize that people of similar sects and races are visible on all key posts. Shamshad Ahmad, Foreign Ex-Secretary, in his article on Renaissance of Pakistan has explicitly pointed out undercurrents against ethnic and racial priorities which are more visible in universities. To ride through merit barrier, the bureaucracy fixes 60 marks for real unchallengeable credentials and 40 scores for interviews which are often the cause of ethnic decisions. If it becomes unavoidable to employ any out of cloud expert due to professional reasons then his/her salary is fixed at the abject minimum with the verbal promise to increase later due to one or other reasons. They use performance-based criterion to justify his/her low salary giving abundant emoluments to their incompetent people.