KARACHI, June 2: Teachers at the University of Karachi foresee the destruction of public education in the recommendations presented by the task force on higher education.

An opinion mobilization meeting against the proposed university ordinance and the recommendations on higher education was arranged at the Department of Political Science, with Tanveer Khalid in the chair, on Saturday. The participants of the meeting discussed at length the impacts of the reforms proposed by the task force, said a press release of the varsity teachers’s body, the KUTS.

There was a consensus that besides eliminating democracy, autonomy, scholarship, transparency and accountability at the universities, the task force recommendations would destroy the public education, particularly at universities. It was viewed that proposal to link tuition fee with the cost of education and other measures like recruitment of teachers on term or tenure basis, would amount to privatization of the public sector universities and education.

“At present the private sector institutions charge on average Rs3,000 per month at primary and Rs25,000 per month at higher level, while on the other hand in the public sector universities quality education was available to a large population of students at only Rs300 to Rs400 per month,” the teachers’ awareness committee informed the teachers and maintained that public sector universities over the years had accumulated large resources in the form of highly qualified full-time faculty, equipped teaching laboratories and proper libraries.

It was further said that the private sector institutions mostly relied on part-time faculty, make-shift arrangements, ill- equipped laboratories and poor library facilities.

The participants of the meeting once again resolved to completely reject the reform proposals of the task force. They unanimously supported the demands put forward by FAPUASA, Sindh chapter, including the appointment of a new commission on the subject of the higher education.