KARACHI: Criticising the government for its failure to honour its commitments made with teachers, the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (Fapuasa)-Sindh warned the government on Thursday of protests if it goes ahead with its ‘own plan’ of reviewing the Sindh Universities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013.

The association’s reaction has come in the backdrop of a notification recently released by Chief Minister House according to which the government has set up a committee to review the recommendations submitted by chairman [provincial] Higher Education Commission (HEC) on the Sindh Universities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013 and also give its own recommendations.

The committee is tasked with submitting a report within two weeks.

It may be mentioned here that the 2013 act was forcefully rejected by teachers the same year through strikes and protests, forcing the government to call for the law’s review in consultation with teachers.

“A draft was agreed upon and the government officials holding meetings with teachers at that time had assured our representatives that the draft’s recommendations would be incorporated in a bill and presented in the assembly for discussion. But, that never happened,” Dr Naimatullah Leghari, president Fapuasa-Sindh chapter, told Dawn.

Now, after a gap of more than two years, the government had suddenly started working on the law’s revision, excluding teachers in the consultative process, he added.

“We will resist this process through strikes,” Dr Leghari reaffirmed.

He urged the government to follow the old universities law approved in the period of late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, which, he said, was still relevant and upheld principles of merit and university autonomy.

Voicing similar concerns, Dr Shakeel Farooqi, secretary general, Fapuasa and president Karachi University Teachers’ Society, said that the government was making a serious mistake for the second time by excluding Fapuasa from the review process.

“The 2013 act was rejected by all universities from Karachi to Larkana and resulted in protests across Sindh. And, this will happen again, if the government goes ahead with its agenda,” he said.

The recently-formed government committee, he pointed out, lacked competency.

“The chairman of the provincial HEC owns a private university which constitutes a conflict of interest. One member of the committee [had] no experience of university career, management and structure before he became a dean and then vice chancellor of a very small, new and single-faculty university in contradiction [with] the structure of a fully-fledged university.

“The chair and a member retired from an engineering university and thus do not posses profound experience of working at a general university of the public sector,” he said, adding that these factors were a source of concern for the teachers.

Members of the government committee set up to review suggestions submitted by provincial HEC chairman on 2013 act and submit its own recommendations are: retired Prof S.M. Qureshi (chairman), member search committee for vice chancellor, retired Prof Abdul Qadir Rajput (chairman charter inspection committee) and retired justice Qazi Khalid Ali (vice chancellor Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, University of Law, Karachi).

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2017