HYDERABAD, Aug 30: The Sindh University Teachers Association on Wednesday demanded removal of the chairman of Higher Education Commission (HEC), Dr Attaur Rehman, accusing him of creating hurdles to the universities’ governance and failure to resolve nagging problems confronting the higher seats of learning.

The demand came at a meeting of the association’s general body presided over by Dr Syed Inayatullah Shah. The meeting urged the government to stop appointing retired army officers, retired bureaucrats and retired professors to the posts of vice chancellors and other administrative posts in the universities. Most of the universities in the country were being run by retired officials, the meeting observed.

The meeting demanded that the commission should appoint vice-chancellors from among the in-service senior professors of the same university for one tenure only and called for the upgradation of non-PhD professors and associate professors to grade-21 and 20, respectively, as announced by the prime minister.

The HEC had in practice scuttled implementation of the prime minister’s announcement by putting up a number of conditions depriving 375 non-PhD teachers from upgradation, the meeting said.

The teachers pointed out that they had no facility to do PhD at home or abroad. Besides, there were many disciplines which did not offer any PhDs, the meeting said.

The meeting demanded appointment of meritorious professors to grade-22 and said that the association had rejected the Model University Ordinance two years ago.

The meeting slammed implementation of the ordinance in Balochistan University and demanded that the government withdraw it. The university teachers slammed what it called the teachers’ victimisation in Balochistan University by the vice chancellor.

The meeting regretted delay in allotment of plots in the Sindh University Employees Cooperative Housing Society Phase-III and demanded that the salaries of the university’s research associates should be raised from Rs7,500 to Rs16,000.

The meeting demanded that medical allowance should be increased from Rs1,000 to Rs3,500 a month on the pattern of other universities of the country.