KARACHI: University teachers on Monday lashed out at what they described as the government’s “conspiracy to take over” public sector universities through “illegal” appointments and demanded immediate approval of their recommendations on the Sindh Universities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013.

They were speaking at a press conference organised by the Sindh chapter of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (Fapuasa) at Karachi University (KU) following a meeting of its members.

“It’s a black law, a conspiracy hatched to take away autonomous status of public sector universities. But teachers are united and will never let this happen,” said Dr Arfana Mallah who heads the Fapuasa’s Sindh chapter and the Sindh University Teachers Association.

Dr Mallah, flanked by Fapuasa (federal) president Dr Naimatuallah Leghari and Karachi University Teachers Society president Dr Shakeel Farooqi, strongly criticised government interference in universities.

“The government is trying to infiltrate the universities through illegal and unfair appointments and now people who are not even eligible to be a peon are being appointed as pro vice chancellor,” she remarked.

Forced by the government apathy teachers had now decided to hold a convention on Feb 18 to prepare a strategy for future course of action, she announced.

Highlighting teachers’ struggle against the amended universities act, she explained that teachers had submitted a draft based on their recommendations two years ago which the government had promised to table in the assembly.

“But there has been no progress on it since then. We demand the draft be accepted as we will never allow the government to overrule the authority of university’s statutory bodies,” she vowed.

She called upon the government to de-notify the Oct 30, 2015, notification under which move-over to teachers with hardship cases had been withheld. There was no such precedent in other provinces, she said.

Hardship cases pertain to teachers whose promotions are withheld for some reasons and they get raise in salary with a move-over without change in cadre.

She accused the government of “discriminating against the universities by imposing flawed policies”, which, she said, was only happening in Sindh.

“It’s only in Sindh that we see teachers who intend to travel abroad have to get an NoC from the governor. We have been demanding in vain for two decades that the governor delegate the powers to issue the NoC to the vice chancellor concerned as is the norm in other provinces,” she said.

On security issues, she said, the provincial government had not called any meeting to discuss the issue despite the fact that terrorists were targeting educational institutions.

She objected to the allocation of Higher Education Commission fund for security, which, she said, was the same for all universities despite great difference in number of students and area.

Dr Mallah urged the government to negotiate with teachers of the university concerned over their issues and not with the vice chancellor who was its own appointee and did not represent the teaching community.

To a question, she responded that teachers would exhaust all civilised options before turning to legal recourse.

About the provincial HEC, she said that teachers supported it on condition that the government appoint prominent academicians and scholars to the commission instead of making political appointments or selecting retired judges.

The search committee tasked with selecting and recommending names for the post of vice chancellor also needed to be de-politicised, she said.

Dr Inayat Magsi of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University, Larkana, pointed out that the government had made at least three appointments against rules in recent months.

“A senior lecturer has been appointed as pro-vice chancellor of the university when there was a ban on appointments while two posts of controllers of examination for undergraduates and postgraduates have been created against the university code and have been filled without publicising the posts and calling interviews,” he said.

Earlier, in his opening remarks, Dr Naimatullah Leghari lamented that unlike the Khyber Pakhtunkhaw government which directly intervened in the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, and removed its vice chancellor when teachers held protests over extension of his term against rules, the Sindh government had not taken any step to address teachers’ concerns.

If the government did not pay any attention, teachers would take their demands to Islamabad and mobilize teachers of other universities over the issue, he warned.

Teachers from Agriculture University, Tandojam; NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi; Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur; and Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, also attended the Fapuasa meeting.

Meanwhile, Karachi University Teachers Society announced holding a general body meeting on Wednesday.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2016