FAPUASA flays CM aide’s diatribe about universities

PESHAWAR: The Federation of All Pakistan Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) has criticized special assistant to the chief minister, Kamran Bangah, for referring to the universities as private corporation and demanded the governor and chief minister to take resignation from him over the “irresponsible statement.”

The academic and non-academic staff of the public sector universities Friday continued their protest drive and staged a big demonstration at the Agriculture University, Peshawar. FAPUASA President Dr Shah Alam, President Peshawar University Teachers Association (PUTA) Dr Fazle Nasir and others led the demonstration.

The speakers on the occasion criticised the provincial minister for what they called an irresponsible comment, which he gave during an interview with an international news agency.

Kamran Bangash had stated: “When institutions go into losses by decreasing their products and increasing expenditure, pays are reduced there and downsizing is made.”

The speakers said that the universities were not private corporations where commodities are produced. “These are seats of learning not earning firms. The students here were the products, who can’t be sold out,” said one of the speakers.

They said that the minister should quit the responsible position after this irresponsible remark. They vowed that they would continue their protest till the acceptance of all their demands.

Meanwhile, it was decided that a big protest camp would be arranged outside the administration block of the University of Peshawar today (Saturday) where the syndicate of the university would also meet simultaneously. In his video message to the teaching fraternity, PUTA president Dr Fazle Nasir urged the association members to ensure massive participation in the protest camp as it was the most important day and they would record history.

He said that the syndicate was having the allowances’ cut and work load of the teaching fraternity on its agenda. They would never allow the university administration to reduce the salaries and cut the allowance of the university employees, he added.

The university employees had already been facing severe financial problems due to the non-payment of salaries on time and further cut would be unbearable for them. Similarly, the university has adopted a cruel work load policy for the teaching fraternity, who had already been not paid their wages for the extra classes they have taken, he added.