Demanding of the government not to implement the ordinance in the federal universities, the demonstrators called upon the authorities to invite representatives of the association for a dialogue so as to revise the ordinance. They also threatened to launch agitation inside the universities if the issue was not addressed properly.
“The academic community of the universities is highly agitated at the ill-conceived, ill-planned and ill-drafted ordinance in which the university teachers were not taken into confidence,” said a memorandum presented to the members of the National Assembly.
Carrying placards and banners, the teachers raised slogans to draw the attention of parliamentarians. The police contingent, however, blocked their way by creating a human wall. Later, the police decided to remove the wall when the teachers assured that they would not raise slogans any more.
President of Peoples Party Parliamentarians Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, Raja Pervez Ashraf, Jamaat-i- Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Liaquat Baloch met with the representatives of the association and assured them that their apprehensions would be taken up in the House.
The teachers informed these leaders that through the ordinance the right of Parliament to discuss affairs of the university or to bring improvements in their function would be lost.
The secretary of the Punjab University Academic Staff Association, Mumtaz Anwar Chaudhry, told Dawn that they had decided to continue their protest till the redressal of the issue. The demonstration was in fact organized against the privatization of the public universities, he said, adding the representative body was not against the transformation of the system but would oppose every move to restructure the existing system.
He said the ordinance had already been implemented in various universities, including Allama Iqbal Open University, Quaid-i- Azam University, National University of Science and Technology, Federal University of Urdu, National University of Modern Languages, Fatima Jinnah University for Women etc.
He alleged that the real motif behind promulgating the law was the fulfilment of the World Bank and IMF agenda to make these institutions lucrative for foreign investors. “This would make higher education inaccessible to the common man,” he said.
The memorandum said the ordinance would destroy the academic and research system in the country and it would deprive the poor from educating their children in the public universities. The ordinance would corporatize the public universities, which would be converted into private universities.