FAPUASA threatens shutdown in Sindh if demand for varsities’ autonomy not met

Karachi

Calling to restore public sector universities’ autonomous status, the provincial chapter of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (Fapuasa) on Thursday threatened to boycott educational activities at all varsities for an indefinite period from April 16 if the Sindh government failed to meet the demand.

The teaching fraternity, following a Teachers’ Convention – attended by other representative bodies - held at the Karachi Press Club also announced to hold a protest in Islamabad in case of the authorities failing to meet the given deadline. Blaming Governor Sindh as well as the Chief Minister for taking ‘poor decisions’ and unnecessarily interfering in campus issues, the speakers at the convention, also strongly criticised them for appointing undeserving people on key posts.

Denouncing the Sindh Universities Amendment Act, 2013, Fapuasa Sindh president Dr Arfana Mallah observed that the entire fraternity stood united against the law.

Referring to the Governor as the ‘viceroy’, she further castigated him for interfering with the business of the varsities despite not having visited them once in the past 10 years.

“Dr Asim was made the provincial chairman of the Higher Education Commission because the government did not have any ministry available for him,” Dr Mallah added.

Retired judges and political figures were made a part of the committee tasked with suggesting a vice-chancellor for the universities, instead of PhD scholars of good repute, she observed, adding that admission policies were solely the business of an academic institution and not an entire assembly.

“A number of varsities were facing a shortage of grants since funds were being distributed to a favourite few,” the president added.

Dr Arfana also demanded the chancellor’s office to withdraw the ‘hardship policy’ of a professor, irrespective of being posted at a varsity other than Karachi, to approach the Governor House in order to be granted permission to speak at any event, and hand it back to the VC’s of the respective varsities. 

She also demanded to lift the ban imposed by the chancellor and restore the VC’s authority to promote teachers with hardship cases (pertain to teachers whose promotions are withheld for some reasons and they get raise in salary with a move-over without change in cadre) who could not complete their PhDs.

Fapuasa federal president Dr Naimatullah Laghari while addressing the convention complained that teachers in Sindh were being unfairly treated as compared to the rest of the provinces, and demanded all universities in Sindh to be provided with similar health care facilities and housing schemes. He criticised the Sindh government’s criteria for promotion of university teachers and urged them to follow the example of other provinces.

Dr Shakeel Farooqi, president of the Karachi University Teachers Society (KUTS) thanking the judicial and medical fraternity as well as civil society activists, who showed up in solidarity with the teachers’ associations, noted that university teachers were stuck between a rock and a hard place, the chancellors and the CM secretariats. 

Seasoned columnist Ghazi Salahuddin expressed that our academia needed to have the freedom to encourage the culture of debate and research on campuses in order to further educate the masses.

He claimed that dictators, not only in Pakistan but also in several other countries shifted higher education institutions outside the main city area so that students could not take part in social and political activities, “and Pakistan just like the other countries was paying a price of the bad decisions,” he added.

Intolerance has been on the rise in India too, but their civil society was much stronger and greater in number than ours only because the culture of discourse was encouraged by the state, Salahuddin added.

Representative of the Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University, Dr Inayat Magsi, claimed that the chancellor’s interference was not only an injustice to deserving teachers but to the entire whole province.

Citing a few incidents of people of poor merit being appointed on crucial posts, he warned that if policies were not straightened, then students currently enrolled in medical colleges and universities would five years down turn out to be worse than the quacks posing as faith healers.

Pakistan Medical Associationi General Secretary Dr Mirza Ali Azhar while speaking at the convention said the provincial government was yet to put the education and health sectors on their priority list.

A lawyer by profession Zia Awan who had also joined in the convention to express solidarity with the teachers, expressed that it was matter of unstable priorities that had led to the doom and gloom of a number of universities previously home to a number of accomplished professionals. “It is the mind set of feudalism that has destroyed academia.”   

SPLA

The Sindh Professors and Lecturers' Association (SPLA) also in solidarity with the teaching fraternity held a protest outside the press club. Its president, Ali Murtaza, observed that political parties had worked tirelessly to achieve provincial autonomy but they were themselves not ready to empower others.

They also called to stage a sit-in at the CM House on March 30 if the demands were not fulfilled.

Professor Usman Ali of the Nadirshaw Eduljee Dinshaw University and Dr Usman Ali also spoke at the event.