LARKANA: The Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA) Sukkur region in its urgent meeting here at the Government Degree College Larkana on Monday decided to boycott the forthcoming examinations of BSc, BA, BCom and MA scheduled from Jan 27 against the “unfulfilled promises” of the management of Shah Abdul Latif University (Salu), Khairpur Mirs.

Sukkur region SPLA president Prof Syed Ghulam Asghar Shah chaired the meeting attended by members from the entire region.

The examinations were to be held in December 2019, but under different excuses and reasons, the university had kept on postponing them, the meeting said. Thousands of candidates were waiting to appear in the already delayed exams, said SPLA spokesman Malhar Sindhi, adding that the height of neglect was that the intending candidates for degree courses had not received the admit cards yet. Also the university had failed in providing exam material to the examination centres concerned in the region, which was a matter of concern for both the invigilators and the colleges where the centres had been established, he said.

The meeting was told that the reason behind taking such tough stance was the “intentional” delays in clearing remuneration to the teachers along with unnecessarily lingering on the process of payment of centre bills and assessment cheques to the professors and lecturers by the university managers. Expressing concern over refusal to provide contingency and chemical charges, the SPLA said the meeting in its marathon session had agreed to remain away from examination duties unless the university decided to accept their demands.

Prof Asghar Shah alleged that the university administration was compelling them to protest as it was denying their genuine right of remuneration for conducting different examinations for two years. The examination material in principle should have been dispatched and received at the notified examination centres at least 10 days prior to the start of the papers, he said, but regretted that so far no material was made available at the centres.

He alleged that the ‘inept’ officers of the university were busy in corruption that had put the future of thousands of students at stake. Mr Shah warned the university against making the SPLA a scapegoat at the cost of its ineptness and declared that his organisation would not be ready to cooperate till what he called genuine demands were met.

Prof Mushtaque Phulpoto, Prof Mohammed Ayub Marri, Prof Lal Bakhsh Kalhoro, Prof Ghufran Baloch, Prof Lal Bakhsh Sohu were prominent among others participating in the meeting.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2020