TTS teachers seek salaries, status

Islamabad : All Pakistan Tenure Track Association (APTTA), a representative body of Track Tenure System (TTS) faculty across Pakistan, on Friday demanded compliance of the TTS statutes in true letter and spirit as well as payment of salaries as per salary structure which was approved by the Prime Minister in 2019.

The association’s President and General Secretary Dr. Yasar Shah and Dr. Tanveer Shehzad said that there are 4500 tenure-track faculty members of universities in the country while due to laxity of the authorities concerned the future of this big number faculty is being jeopardized.

As per revised policy, they said, this has serious repercussions for the job security, annual increments, and promotion of the TTS faculty because the HEC's share of TTS funding is going to shrink under the revised funding policy.

Universities have already stopped hiring new TTS faculty despite the fact that the same faculty has been the best performing component of university faculty for two decades as per the HEC's recent survey published in 2019, they claimed.

The APTTA cabinet has given the HEC a deadline of February 3, 2023 that HEC should withdraw the new funding policy notification issued on December 16, 2022 and restore the old funding policy. If the chairman of the HEC fails to do so, the APTTA will stage a protest and sit-in in front of the HEC until their just demands are met.

Earlier, the HEC had written to all universities, warning them if a faculty member assumed an administrative post such as registrar, HR director or treasurer, etc., the period for which he/she remains on that post shall not be counted towards his/her TTS service and during that period he/she will not be eligible to draw TTS salary.

“After June 30, 2014, if a faculty member on TTS assumed responsibility of academic (cum) administrative position of director research, dean of a faculty or head of a department, the period of holding such appointment shall not be counted towards his/her TTS probation period and (he/she) will not be eligible to draw TTS salary,” the HEC said, adding the government was offering a lot of incentives to engage faculty members in research in their respective fields and if they involved themselves in other activities the very purpose could not be served, therefore, the varsities needed to strictly follow these instructions.

The prime purpose of introducing TTS was to promote research and impart quality education to students in various fields.

On the other hand HEC chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed told media that the policy was placed in 2019-20 which has nothing to do with him as being alleged by the said teachers’ body. However, he said that he didn’t find any flaw in that policy as well because, he added, it was the need of hour as well in the current economic situation in the country.

Replying to a question, he said that currently the HEC is out of funding for this purpose, adding that the commission was already under crisis to provide scholarships under announced programmes. “It is on record that the country needs more funds to assist deserving students so that they could enhance their capabilities which will benefit the country ultimately,” he said.

The chairman recalled that the inflation rate became many times high but resources are the same due to which the scholarship programme was heavily affected.