Academic activities at KU suspended due to teachers' strike

Teachers demand increase in salaries, payment of outstanding dues

KARACHI: On the call of the Karachi University Teachers Society (KUTS), a strike was observed on Wednesday at Karachi University (KU) to highlight the financial woes of the varsity's teachers.

Academic activities at KU remained suspended due to the strike, leaving the students perturbed.



Explaining the teachers' demands, KUTS President Jamil Kazmi said teachers wanted a 5 per cent increase in their salaries along with payment of other promised perks and outstanding dues such as Rs25,000 PhD allowance, medical bills' dues and promotion dues.

"After 18 years, a strike against the administration has been called because of the Sindh government's callousness and KU administration's helplessness," he said, adding that the teachers never wanted to inconvenience students and they decided to go on strike only as a last resort.



The KUTS president maintained that the chief minister had promised to grant the PhD allowance, however, the promise had yet to be fulfilled.

KU is always facing a financial crisis, Kazmi lamented. "If the administration is unable to resolve the issues, at least it can sit and talk with the teachers," he said.

The KUTS president blamed the registrar for the varsity's administrative collapse. Alleging that the incumbent registrar had been illegally appointed, he demanded that a new registrar be appointed who understood the issues of teachers, students and non-teaching staff of the varsity.



Kazmi warned that if the issues remained unresolved, the teachers could start protesting on a daily basis, boycott the examinations or even the upcoming semester.

Meanwhile, the strike inconvenienced the students who came to the varsity only to find that classes were not being held. Talking to Express News, students decried that they had to cover a large distance to come to KU. "Upon reaching the university, we learnt that classes had been cancelled due to the teachers' strike. Our exams are near and such a situation is troublesome," said a student.