LAHORE: The Punjab government is trying to snatch the autonomy of the universities of the province by introducing “Uniform Model Universities Act” during Covid-19 pandemic to avoid any protest from the teaching community and students, said office-bearers of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) Punjab Chapter on Wednesday.

The FAPUASA Punjab chapter online meeting was held to discuss major issues affecting universities in general and faculty/staff in particular at length.

FAPUASA Punjab Chapter President Prof Dr Mumtaz Anwar Chaudhry, Central President Dr Sohail Yousaf and representatives of Academic Staff Associations (ASA) from different universities of the province were also present in the meeting.

They said faculty members of all the universities would give resistance to any attempt of challenging and reducing autonomy of the universities. We will not accept the proposal to appoint retired judges and bureaucrats, as head of the Syndicates of different universities, the meeting warned.

They said the government and the Higher Education Department (HED) should consult universities administrations, in general, and their elected ASAs, in particular, to discuss and bring improvement in governance.

They said the universities were facing huge financial problems due cuts in federal and provincial higher education commissions budgets 2019-20 and many universities were unable to pay timely salaries to faculty and other staff.

They said the higher education budget should be increased to a least their last fiscal year demand of Rs120 billion.

FAPUASA Punjab Chapter President Mr Chaudhry told Dawn the government was trying to bring so-called Uniform Model Universities Act in the name of bringing uniformity but they were trying to snatch the autonomy of the universities.

He said previous and incumbent governments had tried several times to snatch autonomy of the universities but the teaching community, civil society and students had put up strong resistance to avert the situation.

He said one could easily check the malafide intentions of the government that they were trying to bring the Uniform Model Universities Act during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He warned that they would give a sound reply to the government for trying to snatch autonomy of the universities.

A source told Dawn that in a recent meeting, Minister for Higher Education Raja Yasir Hamayun Sarfraz, Law minister Raja Basharat and higher education department officials had discussed a draft of the Uniform Model Universities Act.

He claimed that all the universities of Punjab would be governed under Uniform Model Universities Act and according to it, the provincial minister would chair the Syndicates of all universities and the Senate would be excluded from it and proposed minimizing representation of teachers and students.

The FAPUASA meeting also demanded that 70 per cent tax rebate should be restored for university faculty members and the HEC should adopt the recommendation of the TTS/BPS committee in its upcoming meeting.

They said the service of TTS faculty should be secured and salary should be enhanced substantially.

They said as the Covid-19 cases were increasing across Pakistan, university administrations should not compel faculty members to physically come to the campuses to take online classes and other assignments.

Minister for Higher Education Mr Sarfraz and HED Secretary Zulfiqar Ghuman were not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2020