KARACHI, Nov 7: The seriousness of the government regarding promotion of the education sector in Sindh could be gauged from the fact that more than 300 assistant professors and more than 50 associate professors had been waiting for their promotions in the province.

This was stated here on Tuesday at a high-level meeting of the Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association with its president Prof Syed Riaz Ahsan in the chair.

The meeting strongly criticised the Sindh education department for putting the issue of promotion of college teachers on the back burner along with other problems faced by the teacher community. It said that due to this negative attitude of the Sindh education department unrest and disappointment was growing amongst the teachers of the province.

The meeting noted that more than 300 assistant professors in Sindh were waiting for promotion in the next grades, while more than 50 associate professors were waiting for their promotion in Grade-20.

It said that 60 librarians were promoted a year back; however, the orders of their promotion were yet to be issued besides more than 70 DPEs were also waiting for their promotions. It further said that 700 ad-hoc teachers were deprived of salaries since last three months, despite the fact that the Sindh chief minister had approved summary regarding extension in their service period.

The meeting also decided to fix Dec 31 as the last date for establishing units of the SPLA.

It appealed to the Sindh governor, chief minister and chief secretary to instruct the education department to solve the problems of teachers. It decided to hold meeting of executive body of SPLA on Dec 12 to chalk out strategy to solve problems faced by the teachers.—PPI