AIT senate chief's contract pulled

President Prof Said Irandoust wrote to Jayant Kunmar Routray on November 30 saying that he had revoked his new employment contract, which was to go into effect from January 1, 2013 until December 31, 2016. 

The contract was pulled even though AIT executives had unanimously approved it in October. This decision comes after the Academic Senate resolved recently to call on the president to step down and take responsibility for the problems about AIT’s legal status and certification degrees issued to its students. 

The current chairperson’s contract wraps up at the end of this month. 

Representatives of the alumni and AIT lecturers visited the Foreign Ministry yesterday to protest after the ministry’s permanent secretary reportedly allowed the president to reduce the agenda of a meeting between the ministry and the AIT’s former board of trustees from seven items to two. The meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. 

An AIT source said the representatives wanted the agenda for the meeting to be increased to five. The two issues currently on the agenda include discussions about the degree-related problems and the AIT management’s budget request. Among the issues struck off the agenda were discussions on the selection of the new president and executives. 

Meanwhile, in a statement through his personal communications team, Said claimed that the meeting on Wednesday called by Shinichiro Ohgaki, chair of the former board of trustees, was not valid because Ohgaki was not part of the current board of trustees. He said the only people who were allowed to hold a meeting with the ministry were current board members Tej Bunnag and Jean-Pierre Verbiest.