HYDERABAD, Aug 5: Con-demning the ban on teachers’ associations as illegal, leaders of various political and religious parties and activists of teachers’ and human rights organisation demanded that it should be immediately withdrawn.

Speaking at an all-party conference at the press club here on Saturday, they said the ban on associations was violation of teachers’ right to form unions.

The conference was convened by the Sindh Employees Alliance. SEA chairman Rafique Jarwar presided over the conference.

The alliance announced on the occasion that its 300,000 members and their family members and relatives would not vote for any candidate of the PML-Q in the next general elections.

The conference demanded that the Sindh education minister should be removed, education boards should be handed over to the education department, retired employees working in boards should be removed and dismissed teachers should be reinstated in service.

Sindh Taraqi Passand Party chairman Dr Qadir Magsi said that the education system of Sindh needed improvement and teachers alone were not responsible for the destruction of education.

He said that the beginning to destroy education in Sindh was made during the Zia regime and at present, right from primary to university, the standard of education had been completely destroyed.

He said that the government itself was responsible for appointing unskilled teachers who had destroyed education.

He said that school buildings had been constructed at places where not a single student had been enrolled and buildings were being used as “Otaqs” of feudal lords.

He stressed the need for a joint struggle for the removal of ban on teachers’ associations and students’ unions.

Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz vice-chairman Abdul Wahid Arisar said that government curbs on associations were bound to paralyse and cripple human minds.

He said that the government policies, not the teachers, were responsible for the destruction of education.

He said that assembly members were given employment quota who appointed illiterate teachers who had destroyed Sindhi language and education.

He held corrupt bureaucrats responsible for destruction of the education system in Sindh.

Noted lawyer Yousuf Leghari said that according to the Constitution, teachers had the right to form associations and banning associations was absolutely illegal.

Sindh National Congress leader Hussain Bux Thebo said that undemocratic and illegal decisions were being made in Pakistan because the government itself was illegal and undemocratic.

He said that there was no ban on associations and unions in other provinces but such a ban had been imposed in Sindh which was a flagrant violation of law.

PPP leader Moula Bux Chandio said that there was no doubt that the entire education system in Sindh was going down the hill but the solution did not lay in imposing ban on teachers’ associations.

He said that the undemocratic rulers were trying to conquer every department one by one but members of the civil society were witnessing excesses of rulers as mute spectators.

Rafiq Jarwar, Prof Liaquat Aziz, Imdad Qazi, MPA Zahid Bhurgari, Jam Saqi, MPA Rehman Rajput, Waheed Qureshi, Taj Mohammad Nahiyoo, Afzal Gujjar, Peeral Majidano and Ayoub Shar also spoke on the occasion.

Prof Liaquat Aziz said that the teachers would never boycott classes and examinations.

He said that any member of the alliance, who did not take classes regularly, would be expelled from the organisation.