Deduction from salaries, other issues

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar University Teachers Association (PUTA) on Thursday launched a complete boycott of all academic and non-academic activities to protest what they called constant violation of the Universities Act and statutes, anti-teachers attitude and deduction from salaries.

The executive committee of the association took the decision in its emergency meeting. The association announced not to call off the strike until all the demands were accepted.

The syndicate of the university in its recent meeting had taken certain decisions, which sparked another protest in the university. The teaching fraternity declared that they would observe the complete boycott of all kinds of activities, including classes, exams, admissions and official meetings.

The university administration in its press release issued after the Syndicate meeting had made certain claims, which were totally contradictory of the minutes of the meeting issued a day later.

The university administration had made a claim about the participants of the meeting, which was rejected by the elected members of the body, who said that they had boycotted the meeting and the quorum had gone short. Therefore, the meeting was totally illegal, they said.

They pointed fingers at certain participants of the meeting who by law could not attend the meeting of the august body.

The elected members said a budget officer from the Finance Department, a deputy secretary from Establishment and one from Higher Education Department, the treasurer of the university and the registrar had attended the meeting, which was a joke with the prestigious forum. “This is a blatant violation of the Universities Act enforced by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government and the university’s statutes,” said an elected member of the syndicate.

More seriously, the press release shared with the media, stated that the matter of deduction from salaries was not discussed and fees were not raised. But the minutes of the meeting showed that drastic deductions have been made from the teachers’ salaries.

“The deduction made from the salaries has reduced the salaries of every teacher by at least Rs 40,000 a month. The provincial government had agreed that even the HED letter seeking mere a cut in the house rent and medical allowance would be withdrawn and this vice-chancellor went far beyond the letter even by deducting all the allowances and putting more burden on teachers by increasing the deduction rate for maintenance, gardener, street lights, security and others,” PUTA President Dr Fazle Nasir told The News.

He said the workload of teachers had increased. A teacher would not be required to take 15 credit hours against the HEC recommended nine credit hours and a professor would take 12 credit hours against the six fixed by the HEC, he elaborated.

Dr Fazle Nasir alleged that the vice-chancellor was deliberately creating misunderstandings between the teaching fraternity and the provincial government. He said the government should take notice of his (VC) attitude and policies, which he termed illegal. The syndicate meeting is illegal and so are its decisions, he believed.

Dr Fazle Nasir demanded the KP governor to take notice of the situation and resolve the problem in an amicable manner.