Amid an acute shortage of senior teaching staff in public sector medical colleges and universities, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has reportedly agreed in principle to allow the contractual hiring of retired faculty members up to the age of 65, while a proposal has also been floated to enhance the retirement age for medical faculty from 60 to 65 years.
The development emerged through official correspondence exchanged between Jinnah Sindh Medical University (JSMU), PMDC officials and legal advisers.
In a letter addressed to Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, JSMU Vice Chancellor Prof Amjad Siraj Memon urged the provincial government to take up the matter at cabinet level and seek approval from the chief minister for engaging retired faculty members in public sector medical institutions on a contractual basis.
According to the letter, the vice chancellor informed the minister that public sector medical universities were facing a severe shortage of senior faculty in both basic and clinical sciences, creating the possibility of closure of certain departments and adversely affecting academic standards, patient care and institutional stability.
The documents reveal that the matter was recently discussed in the PMDC, where the council resolved in principle that public sector institutions may engage retired faculty members up to the age of 65 purely on a contractual basis. The proposed arrangement, however, would be subject to the condition that such appointments do not affect the promotion prospects, seniority or career progression of junior faculty members.
The issue was examined by a committee comprising PMDC legal member Barrister Chaudhry Sultan Mansoor and Brig (retd) Imtiaz Alam Shah. In their recommendations, they referred to Supreme Court rulings, including the Haj corruption case, which barred the re-employment of retired government servants except under certain conditions and with prior approval of the competent authority.
Barrister Sultan Mansoor, in his legal opinion, noted that the statutory retirement age for government servants remained 60 years and that the Supreme Court had restricted post-retirement re-employment in the public sector. However, he suggested that one possible long-term solution would be for the government to enhance the retirement age to 65 years or above for medical faculty, given the acute shortage of experienced teachers in public medical institutions.
The recommendations further stated that retired faculty could still be hired on a contractual basis with prior government approval, provided that such appointments did not violate existing laws or block the promotion rights of serving officers.
In his letter, the JSMU vice chancellor also pointed out that several public medical universities and institutions were already engaging retired faculty members, including Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS), Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS), Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University Larkana and Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women. He claimed that some campuses had already hired a considerable number of retired faculty members.
