ISLAMABAD: After Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Vice Chancellors (VCs), now Sindh teachers have started criticizing Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) ‘biased’ policies.

In a letter to the prime minister, President Sindh University Teachers’ Association (SUTA), Dr Azhar Ali Shah, who is also Vice President Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (PFAPUA), has sought his intervention to safeguard the interests of smaller provinces.

In a meeting on July 1, 18 VCs of KP complained that they were not getting proper share in the HEC funds. They also demanded that there should be more benefits for the teachers who had been teaching in troubled areas.

Moreover, they demanded that public sector universities in Islamabad should reserve quota for provincial governments in admissions and appointments.

Teachers’ body chief urges the prime minister to intervene

In the letter sent to the prime minister, Mr Shah stated that the situation vis-à-vis Sindh and Balochistan was worse than that of the KP.

“We have repeatedly demanded that the HEC should ensure job quotas for provinces as enshrined in Article 27 of the Constitution,” says the letter.

“Despite repeated promises by the HEC management, this gross violation of the constitutional rights of smaller provinces has not been rectified,” the letter says.

“It is not just the job and admission quotas which are being violated but it is also a bitter fact that smaller provinces specially Sindh and Balochistan are continuously being grossly discriminated against in terms of HEC scholarships, travel grants, training opportunities, placement of foreign returned PhD holders, research and development projects and other funding opportunities,” Mr Shah said in the letter.

“This discrimination was evident from the very data shared by the HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed in a dialogue with FAPUASA Sindh Chapter held in Karachi.

It is an irony that instead of taking any corrective steps, the HEC is all set to continue repressive and discriminative policies,” he said.

“Recent removal of a Sindh based Director who served HEC for three years and was qualifying to be promoted to Director General is yet another example of continuation of the biased attitude of the HEC towards smaller provinces. It must be noted that out of some 44 directors hardly three to four are from Sindh,” he said.

It is pertinent to mention that the HEC management issued reliving notification to Director HRD Ateeque Rahman (BPS 19) on June 27 and instructed him to get the clearance by June 30 ignoring the fact that June on 28 and 29 were weekly off days because of Saturday and Sunday. Moreover his official E-mail account was also closed.

“We demand the Prime Minister who is the controlling authority of the HEC and also the Federal Minster for Education and Training to constitute a sub-committee consisting of senators from smaller provinces and also representatives of FAPUASA to conduct comprehensive inquiry on violation of provincial job quotas and also other forms of discrimination done by the HEC and its recognised federal public sector universities,” the letter says.

Dr Azhar Ali Shah told Dawn said that smaller provinces have been facing discrimination since 2002.

“I am President SUTA for last three years and have been trying to contact all quarters concerned but no one is ready to listen to me and my association,” he said.

“HEC has been giving more funds to federal universities in which children of bureaucrats study. On the other hand children of ordinary people living in provinces are suffering,” he said.

“We were in favour of provincial HECs. Government of Sindh formed provincial HEC but appointed a politician as head of the HEC. Teachers believe that an educationist should be appointed as head of Sindh HEC,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2014