Public universities in dire financial straits

UoP, UET, Islamia College University may not be able to pay employees this month

PESHAWAR:

Public sector universities have been once again in the grip of severe financial crisis in the province and University of Peshawar (UoP), Islamia College University (ICU), University of Engineering Technology (UET) and others may not be able to pay their employees this month.

Official sources told The Express Tribune the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government announced a Rs1.6 billion bailout package for universities in the province but funds have not been released so far.

“Every university including UET and UoP was supposed to get Rs370 million under the bailout package but due to the non-payment of this package by the provincial government and finance department, the universities will not be able to pay salaries to their faculty members and staffers,” said the official.

When contacted General Secretary UET Teachers Association Dr Muhammad Sadiq said that the Higher Education Commission has failed to provide any grant and universities are unable to generate funds on their own so they will not be able to pay employees for the month of June.

“Sindh government allocated Rs14 billion grant for universities in the provincial budget but the K-P government and finance minister announced a budget which is yet to be released,” said Dr Sadiq.

He warned that if universities were not provided with funds on urgent basis then they would give a strike call once again and a boycott of classes would be announced too.

It is worth mentioning here that nearly all public sector universities have been in the clutches of a financial crisis ever since 2018 when PTI came into power in the province for the second time.

This has badly impacted the academic activities in the universities as public sector universities are charging the same amount the private universities are charging but there is visible difference in the quality of education.

“The Awami National Party (ANP) claims to have established several new universities in the province but it is also a truth that staff was hired at large salaries and blue-eyed were adjusted in these newly established universities. Posts were created unnecessarily and as a result now universities are not able to pay even salaries to their staff,” said an official of UoP.

“It is also true that the federal and provincial governments reduced the amount of funds for universities due to financial crisis but mismanagement is also one of the reasons,” he said, adding that the provincial government tried to introduce the salary structure of public sector used in other government departments but due to the Universities Act it can’t be imposed in varsities which could reduce the expenditures of the universities to some degree.

“In the past university of Peshawar was the main university. It faced no competition and its financial standing was largely sound. Now there is a university in almost each district and many more are under construction for which resources are not available,” he said, adding that the only way out was to introduce the government approved basic pay scale in the universities but it has already been rejected by the employees.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2022.