Sindh Universities Law 2013: JI terms step anti-education, teachers recommend changes

Mehanti said that the new law was unacceptable as it deprived universities of their autonomy.

KARACHI:

Rejecting the Sindh Universities Law (Amendment) Bill 2013 introduced by the Pakistan People’s Party, Jamaat-e-Islami’s Karachi Chef Muhammad Hussain Mehanti has said that the bill aims to deprive universities of their autonomy and power.

He said that the administration and academic matters of a university should lie within its democratically elected statutory bodies such as the syndicate, the senate and the academic councils. “The government has no right to interfere in the matters of any university. We will not accept that a university shuts its doors to the students living in Karachi by not giving them first preference in admissions.”

He said that universities can function effectively when they are left to function on their own and there is no interference from political parties. Terming the move to be an anti-education one by the Pakistan People’s Party, he said that the Sindh government had been demanding the federal government for devolutions of powers, but by introducing such a law, was itself violating the move.

Meanwhile, the teachers’ association of Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro, has endorsed the decisions of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association regarding the new Sindh Universities Law amendment bill. According to the association’s president, Dr Ahsan Memon, the amendment, which pertains to the appointments of all administrative posts to be made by the chief minister, needs to be altered. “We will contribute our recommendations to the draft being prepared by the Federal Association for submission to the provincial government for amendments in the new law,” Memon said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2013.