Staff body threatens to close universities across Pakistan

Teachers demand inclusion in key decision-making forums of IIUI

ISLAMABAD: An umbrella body of university staff associations has warned that they may call for a strike in universities across the country unless teachers are granted representation on key decision-making forums at the International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI).

The Federation of all Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (FAPUASA) announced this on Tuesday during a meeting of the FAPUASA which was chaired by the organisation’s newly elected general secretary Professor Dr Shakil Farooqi.



Dr Farooqi, while addressing participants of the meeting at the teachers’ club of IIUI, said that in most public sector universities across the country, teachers had been given representation on key decision-making forums such as syndicates, academic councils and board of governors. However, he pointed out, teachers at IIUI have been deprived of this democratic right.

“Universities are autonomous bodies and teachers are their main stakeholders. How can a university be run without its faculty participating in policy making forums?” Dr Farooqi asked.

He added that FAPUASA fully supports a protest campaign planned by the academic staff association of IIUI.

He warned that unless the authorities and the government grant teachers representation on these forums of IIUI soon, they may have to close all universities across the country.

FAPUASA Punjab chapter president Dr Javed Ahmed said that universities can only make progress if their policy makers are teachers because only the teachers know how to develop a varsity.

IIUI Academic Staff Association (ASA) President  Dr Abdul Jalil said that in all public sector universities of the country, at least four teachers of different seniority are included in decision-making forums such as professors, associate professors, assistant professors and lecturers. Further, these teachers are elected democratically.



But since IIUI is run bureaucratically, Dr Jalil said that no such democratic norms have been adopted in the varsity.

He urged President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to change the constitution of IIUI to give teachers their democratic rights and allow them to be represented on decision-making forums of the varsity.

FAPUASA Islamabad chapter president Dr Shehzad Ashraf Chaudhary said that the IIUI was facing a number of issues because of non-representation of teachers in decision-making forums. He added that teachers can lead the varsity on to a path of development and success.

“If our demands for representation in decision-making forums of IIUI are not met soon, we will stage a protest in front of parliament,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2017.