Abstract

From primary to higher education teachers play a very important role in the development of the student’s personality. Higher education is more important because there grooming of the students is at final stages, therefore, it is important to hire professionally qualified and suitable faculty in educational institutions at that level. There is a need to design proper recruitment and selection policies and also ensure effective implementation of those policies in line with the performance indicators defined for the universities. Higher educational institutions, especially universities are meant for the development and transfer of knowledge. Higher education institutions often struggle to attract competent, talented and highly qualified personnel. Given this situation, it is obviously of interest to design and implement suitable hiring programs that may attract potential faculty to the universities. It is also of interest to determine in general terms, what are the different recruitment and selection policies and programs that are implemented in the higher education institutions or universities, in order to improve those practices for best utilization of resources. This paper presents findings of the research study conducted to examine different policies and practices of recruitment and selection at university of the Punjab -the largest public sector University in Pakistan for its regular, contractual, visiting, tenure track, and foreign faculty at various cadres including; lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors, and professors. The paper also discusses the implementation status of different recruitment and selection policies and practices at the University of the Punjab. The findings of the study reveal major gaps in terms of implementation of the various recruitment and selection policies and its implications from human resource perspective. This study utilizes a qualitative mode of enquiry of deriving the findings. The data has been obtained by using in-depth interviews with respective faculty members representing diverse faculties working on Basic Pay Scale (BPS) prevalent in higher education institutions of Pakistan. The paper discusses policy implications and offers useful recommendations towards strengthening the faculty recruitment and selection practices at higher education institutions in general and University of the Punjab in particular including revisiting of the existing recruitment and selection criteria and process. The paper also underscores the need for reforms in recruitment and selection of the faculty and emphasizes on using hybrid selection methods for appointment of faculty members at various levels in view of the dynamic changing requirements of higher education institutions.