KARACHI: Representatives of teachers and non-teaching staff of public sector universities on Monday issued an ultimatum to the government to withdraw within two weeks an advertisement seeking candidates for the posts of registrar and controllers of examination.

Otherwise, they warned, they would plan an agitation strategy against the government move.

“The associations of teachers and officers of public sector universities unanimously condemn the recent government step and demand that the advertisement be withdrawn immediately,” said Dr Ayaz Keerio, president of the Sindh chapter of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (Fapuasa) at a press conference at the Karachi University (KU).

The advertisement, he said, set 62 years age limit for prospective candidates that violated the government’s own superannuation rules under which an official stood retired at the age of 60 years.

“This shows the government has wrong intentions to hire retired officials on contract who will always look towards it to secure their jobs,” he said.

The government, through this action, had also breached its commitment made with teachers’ representatives last year that it would take up in the assembly their suggestions, which included the demand for allowing universities’ syndicates to retain their discretionary powers to appoint the registrar and the controller of examination.

He said the government had earlier last year agreed with teachers in writing that the issue of the appointment of registrars and controllers would be discussed with them.

The official pledges, he pointed out, were made after the government was forced to withdraw a similar advertisement. “We all protested against the advertisement as it was an attempt to damage the universities’ autonomy,” he recalled.

On teachers’ demand, the government kept last year’s advertisement limited only to the post of director of finance and formed a committee to address other contentious issues, he added.

According to Dr Keerio, the committee comprising law minister and advisers to the chief minister admitted in principle that all concerns of teachers over the Sindh Universities Amendment Act 2013 were valid and would be presented in the assembly for approval.

“Over the past year or so, we remained engaged with lawmakers and lobbied for our draft of the amended act,” said Prof Jamil Hasan Kazmi, head of the Karachi University Teachers Society.

He said that just three months ago he was assured that the teachers’ draft had been approved by the standing committee of the assembly. “Then, as we all know, the province underwent serious political upheavals and the issue was put on the backburner for a while. Now, this advertisement has come as a shock to all of us,” he said.

The teachers, he said, did not want to take to the streets or boycott classes to force the government to accept their demand but then there was no other peaceful mode of registering protest.

President of Fapuasa (federal), Prof Naimatuallh Leghari, assured Sindh universities’ teachers of his support and said if the provincial government did not accept their demand, a protest movement would be launched at the national level.

“A similar move by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has recently been blocked by teachers there. So, we are ready to fight it out here as well,” he said.

Dr Usman Ali Shah of the NED University of Engineering and Technology said that civil society must join hands with teachers as their struggle was aimed at protecting future of coming generations.

“One of our concerns is that the amended act sets very vague criteria for making appointments including that of vice chancellor that may open door to neglect of merit and encouragement of nepotism,” he said.

Teachers at the press conference accused the government of destroying academic institutions and said the recent attempt was aimed at posting ‘favourite officials’ in universities.

They announced convening general body meetings in all public sector universities in the days to come to build momentum for the protest. A black day would be observed on Aug 5 at all universities and a Fapuasa meeting would be held on Aug 12 to decide future strategy if the government did not accept their demand, they said.

They rejected the amount offered as compensation by the government to the family of slain KU teacher Dr Waheedur Rehman and said the government must honour its promise and pay Rs15m to the late teacher’s heirs.

President of the Sindh Universities Officers Federation, Riasat Ali Kubar, supported teachers’ demand and vowed that the non-teaching staff would stand by teachers in their struggle against the government move.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2015

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