HYDERABAD, Jan 22: The newly-formed Sindh Students’ Alliance (SSA) is launching a struggle against commercialization of education and for the rights of teachers, students and non-teaching staff.

This was announced by the alliance leaders at a news conference at the local press club on Tuesday.

The SSA is a conglomerate of the Sindh People’s Students’ Federation, the Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Students’ Federation, the Islami Jamiat-i-Tulba, the Muslim Students’ Federation-N, the Sindh National Students’ Front, the Jamiat Tulba-i-Islam, the SPSF-SB and the Imamia Students’ Organization.

The SSA leaders said that as the first step, an education conference would be held at Sindh level in February and the struggle would continue till the resolution of educational problems.

They expressed concern over the destruction of educational system and low literacy rate in the country, especially in Sindh.

They said that through inordinate increase in fees and privatization of educational institutions, education had been confined to the upper class.

They said that through the proposed model university act and the ban on students union, the voice of students has been silenced.

They said that the educational reforms were not aimed at bringing about an improvement in the educational system but at giving more powers to the administration and commercializing the education system.

Severely criticising the ordinance, they said that its basic purpose was to deprive teachers and students of their democratic rights by doing away with the syndicate, academic council and the senate of the universities and holding teachers on tenterhooks by introducing contract system.

They said that the government was trying to absolve itself of responsibility to educate people by commercializing the educational institutions.

They said that when the students unions were in existence, 13 students were killed, 24 injured, 912 arrested and 226 rusticated during 37 years.

On the other hand, they said, after the student unions were banned, 62 students were killed, 990 injured, 5,235 arrested and 820 rusticated in 18 years.

The SSA leaders said that during the last five years, fees in the major universities had been increased by 500 per cent.

They appealed the human rights organizations to support the students’ struggle.

They criticized the arrest of the alliance leader, Waheed Unnar, student of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Science.

Waheed Unnar was picked up by the Jamshoro police on Tuesday.

MUET: The ceremony of an orientation programme of the first batch of Biomedical Engineering department was held at the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology in Jamshoro the other day.