MULTAN, July 19: The government has jeopardized the future of the families of 65,000 teachers in the Punjab with its policy of privatization of the state-run educational institutions.

This was alleged by PPP district President Advocate Habibullah Shakir while speaking at a press conference here on Friday.

He flayed the government policy and said it was tantamount to putting all the national assets on sale.

He said the government was closing doors of educational institutions for the poor while working on the agenda of the IMF and the World Bank.

The PPP president said the provincial chief executive had ordered privatization of the institutions the day he announced there would be no privatization of the state-run institutions in the province.

He expressed solidarity with teachers and students and urged the latter to press the government to take back its decision. He reminded them of the students’ struggle against denationalization in late Gen Zia’s regime in 1976. He assured them the PPP would not leave the teachers and the students in lurch.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the joint action committee of local professors, lecturers and teachers was held.

The meeting observed that the government did not want to spend even one per cent of its financial resources on education and it had floated the idea of denationalization to divert attention.

The committee urged lawyers, intellectuals, journalists and activists to express unity with the teachers and students of the government institutions to safeguard their children’s rights.