ISLAMABAD: The much-awaited meeting of the Board of Governors (BoG) of International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) is going to be held next week to make some major decisions. The BoG meeting, which according to university ordinance should be held after every three months, could not be convened for the last over one year or so. In accordance with a decision made by the Board of Trustee (BoT) of the university in 2020, the BoG was supposed to approve regulations for appointment of the president of the university through a competitive process. Four years have passed, but rules and regulations for appointment of the IIUI president on pattern of other public sector universities through a competitive process are not approved yet. BoG supposed to approve regulations for appointment of president through a competitive process The upcoming BoG meeting, besides approval of the university budget, will also discuss approval of the rules. However, sources said there were slim chances that the BoG will go for appointment of the president through a competitive process, not at least for the upcoming term as an Islamic country had already decided to appoint its educationist as the president of the IIUI for the next four-year term. The sources said the upcoming meeting will appoint the new president. One of the members of the BoG of IIUI said: “ Our meeting is going to be held next week as per previous decision of BoT. The BoG is supposed to approve rules and regulations for the hiring the IIUI president; however, frankly speaking I guess the BoG will not make a direct decision in this regard. There are certain chances that the BoG will refer the issue to the BoT for a decision,” the member said, adding it was expected that in the upcoming BoT meeting a direct appointment of the IIUI president will be recommended. However, he said, for the next term the appointment would be made through a competitive process. The post of the president is lying vacant since July 16 this year after completion of the term of Saudi educationist Hathal Homoud Alotaibi. After his term, the university made faculty member Dr Mohammad Sarwar as the new acting president. However, his appointment was declared illegal by Supreme Court and subsequently last month IIUI Vice President Dr Ahmed Shuja Syed was given the acting charge of the president. Similarly, the apex court also removed IIUI Rector Dr Samina Malik and a couple of weeks ago HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed took the additional charge of the rector as well. Speaking to Dawn, Dr Mukhtar said the university’s BoG meeting will be held likely in next week. “We are completing working papers,” he said and added that after BoG meeting the university’s BoT meeting will be held. Sources said the upcoming meeting of BoT was likely to be held in Saudi Arabia. The Supreme Court was recently told that the university receives Rs2.1 billion funding from the federal government besides collecting fees from students in addition to Rs600 million from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. A faculty member said if the BoT in its upcoming meeting appoints a foreign educationist as the new president of the IIUI it should also approve a bailout package for the public sector university as its aggregate liability was over Rs14 billion.