LAHORE As many as 6,500 posts in 478 government colleges across the province are vacant due to lethargy of the Higher Education Department Punjab (HEDP), which seemed reluctant to fill the said posts from a couple of years, it is reliably learnt. The authorities concerned of HEDP failed to even trace the locations of the posts and they could not make any policy in this regard so far, the sources said. The failure in recruiting new teachers and promoting those, deserving further exposed performance of the department. According to a notification issued on November 20, 2009 by the department, the sanctioned posts of teachers in the all 478 colleges in Punjab including girls and boys are 18,522 while in year 2010-11 more 678 posts had been created by HEDP but colleges are being run by only 12,700 teachers, the sources said. The sources said that according to the four-tier formula there are 192 posts of professors of BS-20 including 106 male and female; 2841 of associate professors of BS-19; 6410 of assistant professors of BS-18, and 9757 of lecturers of BS-17. They further said only 50 professors of BS-20 were working and a total number of vacant posts stood at 6500. The issue of promotion of the some teachers is also hanging in the balance since 1990 as 160 male and 105 female lecturers are waiting for their promotion from BS-17 to BS-18, the sources revealed. They further revealed that the department is not ready so far to give due promotion to the teachers and make new recruitments in order to fill the vacant posts as well. They said, Interestingly, the department doesnt have any data regarding the location of vacant posts. However, they said, the Higher Education Punjab Secretary had formed a five-member committee three month before to find out the location of vacant posts and discuss the matter. The Higher Education Deputy Sectary is the heading the committee while DPI Colleges Punjab, Director Colleges Faisalabad and two representatives of Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association are the members. The committee held three meetings during three months but failed to find out the location of vacant posts, the sources added. Higher Education Punjab Secretary Haseeb Athar while commenting on the issue said that they had moved a requisition to the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) for the recruitment of 25, 00 lectures to fill the vacant posts. He said the department would also move another requisition to the PPSC within three months so the gap could be filled. Furthermore, he said, the department had asked the principals of the colleges where the posts were lying vacant to recruit the visiting teachers temporarily. He further the department has no computerized data regarding the teachers in past, but now they were doing work to computerize it. Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) President Dr Zahid Ahmed Sheikh, vice president Prof Shahid Chaudhary, general secretary Prof Syed Tanveer Ahmed Shah demanded of the government to re-fix the four-tier formula and to resolve the issue of due promotion of the teachers. The PPLA also demanded that the 3,000 posts which were with autonomous bodies including Government College University Lahore, Government College University Faisalabad, Kinnaird College, University of Education, Lahore College for Women University and others should be given back to the colleges and the recently dislocated promotees must be re-adjusted to the colleges where they had been working for several years. Otherwise, the association warned, they would cordon off the HEDP after summer vacations.