KARACHI: Administrative work at Karachi University (KU) remained disrupted on Friday as majority of the non-teaching staff members opted to join the pen-down strike announced a day earlier in favour of their leave encashment demand.
The disgruntled staffers, however, didn’t hinder academic activities or students’ transport service.
The strike followed a series of demonstrations, sit-ins and rallies over leave encashment on the campus.
Sources said that the KU administration this year hadn’t released leave encashment to any employees, including teachers, on the ground that the university was facing a financial crisis, particularly after the Higher Education Commission deducted a huge sum from its allocated funds.
VC tells stakeholders varsity can’t pay leave encashment to staffers
Meanwhile, KU Vice Chancellor Prof Khalid Iraqi held a meeting with representatives of the non-teaching staff, teachers and officers’ association and discussed proposals on how to address employees’ grievances.
The sources said the Karachi University Teachers’ Society and representatives of officers’ association endorsed the VC’s argument that coffers of the university were empty right now.
“The vice chancellor was of the opinion that the institution is in no position to pay leave encashment to its employees, a large number of whom have been recruited against rules,” shared an attendee, adding that the other side held the university administration responsible for making appointments on political grounds.
The vice chancellor, however, suggested formation of a committee comprising representatives of all the stakeholders to carry out an audit and see whether funds were available for payment of leave encashment or not.
“We couldn’t agree to this recommendation straight away as currently the non-teaching staff has no elected representation. Hence, we informed the meeting that this proposal would be discussed at a general body meeting to be held on Monday,” Tariq Shah, one of the attendees, told Dawn.
Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2023
