College teachers announce class-boycott across KP against BoG

PESHAWAR: The college teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have announced class-boycott and suspension of co-curricular activities from today to press the government to review the proposed Board of Governors (BoG) plan.

The decision was made at a meeting of the action committee of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Professors and Lecturers Association here on Monday with its chairman Prof Jamshed Khan in the chair. The meeting was attended by representatives of all the colleges and office bearers of local units from across the province. A press release, issued after the meeting, said that it was unanimously decided to suspend academic activities in all the male and female colleges in the province and tribal areas till acceptance of their demands.

The said the provincial government had ignored the problems and demands of college teachers.

They said the college teachers repeatedly staged token strikes, held meetings with government functionaries and used other means to get the attention of the government. 

The participants of the meeting declared that after the indifferent attitude of those at the helm of affairs, they had decided to launch a protest campaign in the colleges which would include complete class boycott and suspension of other academic activities.

The office-bearers of the local units were also directed to take appropriate steps at local level for the success of the protest campaign. They said that if the government continued to ignore their demands, they would hold a sit-in outside the residence of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan at Banigala.

The college teachers have been protesting the plan of proposed formation of board of governors and financial and administrative autonomy to colleges.

They believe the proposed policy would bear serious repercussions on the colleges. This decision would not only make education costly for the poor students, but also affect the services of college teachers.

The college teachers are of the opinion that the formation of the so-called board of governor is a step towards privatization of the colleges.

They also have presented some other demands to the government as well such as one-step promotion on the pattern of university teachers, proper service structure for college teachers and librarians, professional allowance like doctors and others. The government recently held talks with the representatives of the action committee and assured them of accepting their demands.

After the assurance of the government functionaries, the teachers had postponed their protest drive.

However, they resumed the protest after getting disappointed with the attitude of the government.