UoP teachers to resume class-boycott today

PESHAWAR: Peshawar University Teachers Association (PUTA) would resume strike and class-boycott in all the departments and constituent colleges from today after the three-day holidays. A general body meeting of the association would be held in the evening to work out future line of action in view of recent developments.

Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Higher Education Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, on the other hand, has constituted a committee of several vice-chancellors to look into the issue. This committee would also meet today. Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra has directed the Higher Education Department to look into the matter.

However, no concrete step could be taken so far to satisfy the protesting teachers and end the strike and class-boycott. Even nobody from the provincial government bothered to contact the protesting teachers and listen to their concerns and take steps for their resolutions. The protesting teachers have already presented demands to the provincial government.

They are of the opinion that the letter sent by additional secretary of the Higher Education Department to the University of Peshawar and other university about model statutes was not only illegal and illogical but also impracticable.

The Higher Education Department wants to implement model statutes in all the 18 universities, including several professional and specialised ones within 66 days, which is not humanly possible let alone following legal procedure.

The teachers also want a statute committee comprising all the stakeholders of the university. A senior professor or even government official should be made convener of the committee instead of a BS-19 ex-cadre employee of the Education Department, said teachers body chief Jamil Chitrali. He said it was an insult to the BS-22 professors to be part of committee headed by a junior and incompetent officer.

The teachers urged the government to take action against the additional secretary higher education for his alleged illegal step and suspend him till completion of the inquiry. The Syndicate of the University of Peshawar also meet today.

Jamil Chitrali asked the university administration to make the model statutes as top item of the agenda of the meeting. It merits a mention here that the Peshawar University teachers have been on strike since September 26.

The classes in 50 academic departments of the university and seven constituent colleges have been suspended, causing a waste of time of the thousands of students. But the government is yet to take a sincere step to resolve the issue.

The Federation of All Pakistan University Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) had threatened to extend the protest to all other universities of the province. But they postponed the protest to October 6 after a meeting of their central and provincial president with Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser.