September 17, 2008	Wednesday	Ramazan 16, 1429

HYDERABAD, Sept 16: The Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association at a meeting held here has expressed profound sorrow over the sudden death of its president Syed Riaz Ahsan and termed it a great loss to the teachers’ fraternity and education in Sindh.

The meeting, presided over by Prof Liaquat Aziz, demanded that the Government Boys’ College Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Karachi, be named after Mr Ahsan in recognition of his services in the field of education.

It decided to hold the elections of the district bodies and Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur regions on Oct 28 and of the central body on Nov 18.

The meeting deplored the delay in the resolution of teachers’ problems.

It pointed out that the academic session in colleges started on August 1, but the necessary arrangements were not made.

It said that there was a shortage of 2,000 lecturers in colleges and added that the education department had not taken steps to fill the vacancies of 482 teachers in grade-18, 493 in grade-19 and 72 in grade-20.

It expressed concern over the delay in the issuance of posting orders to 651 lecturers who had been selected by the SPSC and had been given offer letters.

The meeting condemned the withholding of salaries of ad hoc lecturers.

It warned the government that if problems of college teachers were not resolved, they would be forced to launch a protest movement throughout the province after October 7.