Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA) plans two-month protest campaign
Karachi: The Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA) has chalked out a two-month-long province-wide protest plan (from Jan 23 to March 27) to put pressure on the government to accept its demands.
Speaking at a news conference at the DJ Science College library, SPLA secretary-general Prof Liaquat Aziz said that his organisation did not wont to launch a protest campaign, but was forced to do so after the expiry of the Jan 15 deadline fixed earlier for the acceptance of the teaching community's demands.
"With a view to ensuring that peaceful atmosphere of the educational institutions of the province is not vitiated, we have decided not to boycott classes but to take out rallies and organise protest demonstrations, even if we are subjected to baton-charges by police," he said. Also present were other central leaders of the SPLA, including Prof Umat-us-sami, Prof Yaqoob Chandio, Prof Mirza Ather Hussain, Prof Muzaffar Rizvi and Prof Iftikhar Azmi.
The SPLA leaders said that they had now decided not to hold any negotiations with the officials of the education department until a notification concerning regularisation of service of all ad hoc lecturers was issued by the government.
Listing other demands, they called for the immediate withdrawal of the notification whereby a ban was imposed on college teachers' associations, issuance of posting orders to the lecturers selected by Sindh Public Service Commission, upgrade of college teachers on the pattern of universities, issuance of a notification relating to college teachers' promotion and move-over, filling up of all the 3,036 vacant posts in colleges across Sindh, approval of SNEs (Sanctioned New Establishment) of 29 colleges of the province, abolition of the post of provincial director-general (Colleges), restoration of five directorates of colleges, immediate disbursement of payment under the heading of PhD and MPhil allowances and provision of health facilities to college teachers.
Spelling out the details of a two-month-long protest campaign, the SPLA leaders said that college teachers would start their campaign from Jan 23 by observing a 'black day' in colleges across Sindh, and a rally would be taken out from Govt College Naudero to Garhi Khuda Bux on Feb 3. Further, a general body meeting and rally would be organised at Sukkur's Govt College of Education on Feb 19, another rally would be taken out from Hyderabad's Muslim Govt Degree Science college on Feb 28, another general meeting would be held at DJ Science College on March 17 and later the participants of the meeting will hold a demonstration in front of the Sindh chief minister's house the same day, while hunger strike camps would be set up in Larkana, Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi on March 27 and protest demonstrations would be organised in each divisional headquarters of the province.
At the beginning of the conference, SPLA leaders criticised the Sindh education department for handing over the management of SMB Fatimah Jinnah College to a non-governmental organisation and demanded that the government immediately take back the control of this college and other schools given to the NGO.
They said that since it was the responsibility of the state to provide education to its citizens, NGOs showing interest in running government educational institutions be given land free of cost by the government and asked to set up their own schools and colleges, instead of handing over control to NGOs of those government schools and colleges which were located on a huge piece of land and were already imparting quality education to their students. Dawn