May 23, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 06, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 22: The All Pakistan Professors and Lecturers Association has warned of launching countrywide protests including boycotts if the authorities did not meet their demands.

Speaking at a news conference held at the Rawalpindi- Islamabad Press Club camp office on Tuesday, the association’s president Siraj Ahmed and secretary-general Sabz Ali Khan Marwat also threatened of holding a protest demonstration outside the Parliament House in the federal capital.

They said that if the demands were not fulfilled they would launch protests and also boycott classes from May 29 to 31, besides keeping themselves away from duties during examinations and elections.

According to them, each year the government before the budget made tall claims of increasing salaries and standard of educators but nothing was done on the ground.

Siraj Ahmed said the budget allocated in the name of higher education was spent only on the universities, and colleges were excluded from this budget, greatly affecting their performance.

He said President Pervez Musharraf on the last Salam Teachers Day promised that university and college teachers would be promoted into next garde but the plan was still in doldrums.

About their demands, Mr Ahmed said the teachers wanted the government to revise the criteria for their promotions, besides 50 per cent increase in their basic pay. Similarly, he said, Phd and MPhil allowances for the university teachers must be fixed at Rs2,500.

The association’s president said denationalisation of the educational institutions should be stopped and six per cent of the GDP be allocated for education in the coming budget.

Meanwhile, teachers of the twin cities will hold a protest demonstration in front of the Parliament House in Islamabad on May 28.

Punjab SES Teachers Association, Rawalpindi district, president Syed Tufail Hussain Shah, in a statement, asked the teachers’ community to actively participate in the protest.

Saying that protest was their right, Mr Shah announced that the teachers would also boycott the primary and middle standard examinations beginning on May 25 and June 2, respectively.

He questioned how a person could meet his monthly expenses in just Rs4,700, which was the salary paid to a primary teacher.—Agencies