September 16, 2002	Monday	Rajab 8, 1423

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

LAHORE, Sept 15: Teachers and doctors will hold countrywide demonstrations from September 23 to protest against the government’s education and health policies.

This was announced by the Teachers and Doctors Joint Action Committee at a press conference here on Sunday.

The committee’s office-bearers said teachers, doctors and students from across the country would attend a hunger strike camp, which would be set up in front of Punjab Assembly on Sept 23 to press for withdrawal of the government’s detrimental health and education policies.

They said that after failing to denationalize educational institutions, the government was now bent upon constituting boards of governorsthere.

This was another way of implementing the policy of denationalization, through which the government wanted to sell the institutions to private parties, they added.

They said the BoGs were being given unjust powers and would be able to appoint teachers up to Grade 20, lay out employment conditions for teachers, increase tuition fees, eliminate “non-profitable” subjects like social sciences, change the syllabi without consulting any other educational body and sack “uncooperative” teachers.

They said businessmen and politicians would be able to intervene in the education sector through the BoGs. The government had dismantled consultative bodies like senate and syndicate to reduce the role of teachers in running the affairs of educational institutions, they added.

They claimed that the universities were being turned into departmental stores through application of the principles of market economy, which would absolve the state of its responsibility to protect the rights of people.