KARACHI: Academic activities as well as administrative work have been suspended for the past one week at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology (FUUAST) due to protests and strike by teaching and non-teaching staff against non-payment of salaries and house rent ceiling.

Most affected by the protest, however, are students who say that since the current semester has started, their classes are not taking place on a regular basis because of being affected by one protest or the other every few weeks.

The strike, being held at the Saddar and the University Road campuses of the university, continued on Tuesday as well, with teachers saying that they would continue their protest unless their demands were met by the university management.

The teachers said that they also wanted a proper plan for the release of dues.

At least six months’ dues have not been paid to teachers, non-teaching staff, protesters claim

Among their main demands is the payment of salaries based on the recent raise in the budget.

Talking to Dawn, Assistant Prof at FUUAST Akhlaq Husain said that teachers and non-teaching staff had not been paid past two months’ salaries and six months’ house rent ceiling. A day earlier, however, they were paid only 35 per cent of the salaries as per the increased ratio. But, he added that the more concerning thing for the teachers was that the university was planning to end house rent ceiling and the vice chancellor had also made mention of that a few times.

He said there were financial issues in the university but the VC was not trying to get those issues resolved.

“When the VC was being appointed, I had told him that there were issues of funding, but he had confidently claimed that he knew all the issues and would tackle them,” Mr Husain said, adding that, however, only once a letter was written to the clerk of the president and even to that, no follow up was there.

“Therefore, we believe that no sincere effort has been made to resolve the issues related to funding,” he said and demanded that teachers and non-teaching staff be taken into confidence and given a proper plan that salaries and house rent ceiling would be released.

He also said that their sources had informed them (teachers) that in the syndicate, meeting being held on Oct 24, the VC would get an approval for fixing salaries without adding the recent raise, which would be unacceptable for teachers and non-teaching staff.

Meanwhile, speaking to Dawn, students expressed their frustration over the ongoing crisis and said they were most affected by the strike.

“Since the current semester has started, our classes are being disrupted either by one protest or the other. It’s been around one and a half months but we have had classes only for around two weeks. And due to that there is no momentum in the studies routine,” said Ghulam Mustafa, student at the university.

Another student said: “The issue, as everybody is saying, is that of funding. If the management resolves this issue and teachers are given their salaries on time, they’ll take their classes regularly. But that is not the case. And it is the students who are bearing the loss.”

Similarly, another one said that fees were increased and students were made to pay those, but they were not getting education. Around half of the semester had passed and exams were nearing but they had covered little in the syllabus.

Dawn approached FUUAST VC Dr Zabta Khan Shinwari for the management’s version, but he did not attend the call.

Published in Dawn, October 23th, 2024