The college education sector across Punjab has been affected by the absence of professors from their duties, prompting the provincial higher education department to take action against them.
According to sources in the sector, the students are facing difficulties in completing their courses because of the absence of professors of computer, science and language subjects.
The sources said that around 40 assistant professors in various districts had remained absent from their duties for the past year and the Punjab Higher Education Department had appeared helpless to address the problem.
They said the department was set to start taking action against the professors remaining absent from their duties.
The problem is more severe in the districts where students rely completely on the college teachers for their education.
The issue of teachers remaining absent from their duties is especially serious in South Punjab and remote districts where professors of science, mathematics and computer science fail to take classes.
The students of science subjects, including those of BS, are the worst affected.
The sources in the higher education department said information about around 40 such assistant professors from various districts had come to the knowledge of the authorities and departmental action would soon be initiated against them.
"These 40 assistant professors have been absent from their duties for the past many months. They also include female professors. We sent them a final warning to join their duties," said a senior official of the Punjab Higher Education Department.
The official said complaints against such teachers had also been received from students and their parents.
The department will protect the interest of the students by taking action under the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability Act (PEEDA), the official said.
He said the department would also take action against the principals of the colleges in which the professors habitually skipped classes.
However, an office-bearer of a college professors' union said the majority of the teachers had been absent from duties because of their transfer to remote districts after their promotion as assistant professors.
He said most of the teachers found absent were those who had been promoted about six months ago and later transferred to other, remote districts.
"How can a woman or a senior professor in old age and in the presence of their families afford to go to a district 300km away? It is mismanagement on the part of the higher education department that it transferred professors to remote districts, because of which they are not willing to join their new duties and the students suffer because the teaches are not available in classes," said a female professor.
A former president of the Punjab Professors and College Lecturers Association, Dr Tariq Kaleem, said, "It is the right of the professors to be promoted, but it is not fair to transfer them to faraway districts."
He said there was a need for the department to implement a formula for the promotion of college teachers under which the posts of the promoted teachers were upgraded in the colleges in which they were currently serving.
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