April 2, 2003	Wednesday	Muharram 29, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, April 1: College professors at a protest convention held on Tuesday asked the government to stop denationalization drive in educational institutions.

The convention was organized by the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association at Government Postgraduate Asghar Mall College.

About 200 lecturers and senior professors from various colleges of Rawalpindi division participated in the convention. The central PPLA leaders renewed their pledge to resist the privatization move.

The association’s joint action committee chairman, Prof Nazim Hasanain, in his speech, regretted that the Punjab government had revived the issue of denationalization. He said both the governor and chief minister, after having extensive consultation with the teachers, had promised that the plan had been shelved. But, once again, the issue has been revived and teachers are being forced to take to the streets.

This shows that the government wants to keep the poor away from education, because after denationalization, educational institutions will be beyond the reach of common man.

Prof Hasanain said provision of educational facilities to the people was the top responsibility of the government, but the rulers wanted to get rid of it. If the government goes with the plan, it will lead to increase in fees, dismissal of teachers, framing of new rules and regulations and new syllabi, according to the owners’ wishes.

The PPLA chairman termed the denationalization plan totally baseless, claiming that it was being carried out under the pressure of the United States. He said these institutions had been established by social workers in the form of trusts before the partition, specially for middle class people. The move to nationalize these institutions started in the late 1960s, when the then rulers observed that the main purpose of these institutions was becoming profit earning than imparting education.

Similarly, he said, the missionary institutions were also established. Based on this, he said, there was no base to privatize these institutions.

Speaking on the occasion, the PPLA local president, Mohammad Ilyas Qureshi, refuted the government claims that the standard of these institutions had deteriorated. He was of the view that the declining teaching standard was not the fault of the teaching staff, but an outcome of the interference of non-professionals in this field. He agreed that there was a need for reforms like improvement in examination system, syllabi, research facilities, libraries, laboratories etc. All educational policies should be made in consultation with professionals and educationists, and not the bureaucracy, which has scant knowledge in this regard, he said.

He warned the government to stop the denationalization move forthwith and to take back the decision till April 7, otherwise teachers would be compelled to come out on the streets.

Several resolutions were also passed on the occasion for reinstatement of sacked teachers, nationalizing of FC College, stopping privatization and forming of board of governors, promotion of lecturers, filling all vacant posts; regularization of contractual employees.

The teachers also held a peaceful protest demonstration at the end of the convention.