Haroon Rashid, the Pro-Rector of COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) has been formally terminated from his post. He has been dismissed after his doctoral thesis in the PhD was found to be plagiarised.
Previously, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan had pointed out heavy plagiarism in Rashid’s degree. The former Pro-Rector’s degree was withdrawn by Preston University on June 6, citing plagiarized content found in his thesis paper. Haroon Rashid’s thesis was found to be plagiarized by nearly 72 percent.
CIIT Pro-Rector’s thesis paper was found to be 72% plagiarized
COMSATS Board of Governors met on Friday to discuss on the matter. They had discussed the matter during the previous meeting as well and had asked Haroon Rashid to appear at Friday’s meeting and present his case.
Rashid was given an opportunity to represent himself once before as well. He failed to appear both times as he is currently in the US. The Board of Governors, therefore, decided to terminate his services immediately. At the CIIT, a PhD is a minimum requirement for the Pro-Rector position, which was no longer met by Rashid.
Interestingly, the person in question is also the Chief Executive Officer of National Testing Service (NTS), a private entity started by COMSATS. Sources say that the matter of his role at the NTS also came under discussion in Friday’s meeting. However, the Board of Governors decided to leave that for a later date.
Haroon Rashid still holds the position of CEO at The National Testing Service
Sources familiar with the matter have reported that the government considered taking over the NTS since it was founded by COMSATS, a government run university. With this new revelation, government might reassess whether such an important national service can be left to private ownership and under the leadership of such dubious characters.
Concluding Thoughts
It is unfortunate for Pakistan’s academic circles that such fakers can manage to attain high-level qualifications without going through any rigorous validation process.
Not only was the person unqualified for the job, he managed to stay employed at such an important post in an educational institute for so long.
This is the second time, during the past five years, that an educational institute has sacked one of its leading officers over plagiarism issues.
In this age of technology and digital content, HEC has to ensure that no new thesis goes without testing and that the old degrees are verified to ensure originality.
This is absolutely incorrect and baseless HEC is trying to extort money from comsats.There is some hidden agenda of competing universities to derail comsats reputation.
hey swine, get lost. Lackeys like you are the reason there are so many con men operating with impunity. Whose duck do you think you are? Well, you dont know. You certainly have no posterity in your pedigree, hence showing support for a loser.
b civil, dont use vulgar language
Where is the evidence to support your viewpoint?
Is he your daddy or did he help you plagiarize your thesis as well?
i agree in a sense that degrees of ALL senior university officials should be verified i personally know a person with third division and still served at senior most levels in university of the Punjab and now he is in a renowned private university. As per HEC laws no person can hold a higher position if he has one third division in entire career…. So DUAL standards remain
Shame on this cheapskate! I would strongly recommend that he cough up all the money and perk he has earned during the course of his tenure as a CIIT Pro-Rector. This is the only way to penalize national cheaters!
Slap on the wrist for a crook who probably raked in billions during his tenure of 16+ years, not just 2 years of being pro-rector(whatever that means, suckup to the rector?).
All in all a good lesson to hardworking losers. learn from him. you could have been someone. Ali-baba is livin in USA with his glint of gold in this teeth, smug smile & his quip at you f00ls “bwahaha long live my daddy who gave mi SI” while you losers are toiling for crumbs. (sarcasm)
Yeh Shakal se hi fraudia lag raha hai. koi shak nahi k isney fraud se degree li hoi ho.
His fake degree is just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine a crook with this mentality at the helm of affairs for 16+ years. The p00p heap he has spread is mind boggling. That needs to cleansed as well. Remember all this goes in rottening the roots of this country. The nepotism, killing the merited positions, causing brain drain, appointing suckup incompetents on decision making positions, wasting funds on tours, fake seminar/conferences is enough to reap havoc with the country.