KARACHI, Feb 7: Expressing concern over law and order situation in the province, the Sindh Professors and Lecturers’ Association on Friday maintained that threats were also emerging against teachers’ lives.
Speaking at a press conference, the leaders of the Association said that on one hand teachers were openly being robbed or assaulted while on the other different students’ groups had once again started pressurising them in colleges in regard to “out of way admissions” or for other purposes.
The SPLA chief, Prof Syed Riaz Ahsan, said that a retired professor of Liaquatabad College was attacked by unknown armed persons and deprived of his cash. “The sad side of the incident is that Prof Naseeruddin finally succumbed to his injuries on Jan 30,” he said, demanding arrest of the killers who are still at large.
He said that principals and senior teachers in different colleges including the DJ Science College, Adamjee Science College, Landhi-Korangi College and Gulshan-i-Iqbal College were being threatened for opposing the illegal demands of students’ groups, affiliated with different political parties.
“The politically-motivated students are once again out to sabotage academic peace in the city,” he added.
The SPLA leaders were also critical of the appointments of retired government employees on various posts in educational boards and colleges. They were also not satisfied with the working of some officials of the Sindh education department and demanded their removal.
The SPLA chief announced that in view of the problems faced by college teachers and delay in actions on issues already discussed with the higher authorities and agreed upon, the Association had decided to launch a protest campaign.
The college teachers throughout the province would observe a black day on Feb 18 and hold meetings to register their protest against the prevailing situation.
Teachers would perform their duties wearing black arm-bands on Feb 18, would stage a sit-in against the EDO (Colleges), Sukkur, on Feb 24 in Sukkur. Further line of actions would be evolved in a meeting on Feb 24.
IT EDUCATION: The SPLA leaders claimed that the Sindh education department had failed to master the IT education programme in colleges and as such the IT should be implemented as an optional subject.
It was claimed that even colleges in a city like Karachi were not adequately equipped with computers or were having no proper teachers in the subject.
The SPLA office-bearers referred to a survey and pointed out that there were at least 15 colleges in the city, including eight new ones, that did not have computers, while many other colleges lacked the required number.
