PESHAWAR: Contractual employees of the public sector universities have expressed their concern over the delay in regularisation of their jobs and demanded of the provincial government to resolve their issues within 10 days.

Addressing a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Friday, All Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Contract Employees Association president Kashif Nazeer urged the government and the higher education department to regularise their services without any further delay otherwise the employees would observe a sit-in outside the residence of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan in Banigala, Islamabad, on expiry of the 10-day deadline.

He demanded the provincial government to implement The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Employees (Regularisation of Services) Act, 2018, saying that after the approval of 18th Amendment it was duty of the provinces to resolve such issues.

Flanked by other members of the association, Mr Nazeer said the provincial government had recently regularised jobs of all schoolteachers, but it ignored the university employees for unknown reasons.

He said that at least 8,000 teaching and non-teaching employees in 28 public sector universities in the province were waiting for regularisation of services.

Of the contractual employees, he said, every university had about 30 PhD degree holders who had been in the job for the past about 12 years and still waiting for their regularisation. He said that the Punjab government had also regularised jobs of the contractual staff of the universities.

The employees association’s president said that the government had no clear policy as some of the universities had sacked the contractual employees who had challenged their termination in the relevant courts. He said many of the employees were unable to get fresh jobs due to age factor and they had no other source of income.

Mr Nazeer said the employees had been left with the only option to launch a protest campaign for acceptance of their demand.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2022