Let down, again: Teachers perturbed by new law

Say their recommendations were not added in the amended law despite promises.

HYDERABAD:

The Sindh government has yet again perturbed academia by enacting a second successive bill for the regulation of the government universities, which is being considered ill-disposed to the academic growth of institutions.

The Sindh Universities and Institutes Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2014, has further curtailed the academic oversight and has supplanted it with more bureaucratic control, the teachers argue.

"It is just another controversial bill passed without any consultation with the stakeholders," remarked Dr Azhar Ali Shah, the vice-president of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUSASA). "The only obvious purpose seems to be to give more authority to the bureaucracy over the varsities."



The new law has doubly upset the teachers who stridently struggled for the changes to its antecedent, the Sindh Universities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2013, through their months-long movement. According to Dr Shah, they were expecting that their recommendations given to the government during the course of their protests will feature in the new law. "The government officials kept delaying making changes to the earlier law [which was passed in August 2013]. Each time we met, we were told that the amendments will be done in the upcoming session of the Sindh Assembly."

The teachers are annoyed on two counts - exclusion of their recommendations and two new provisions allowing a bureaucrat to become the vice-chancellor and person-specific legislation for Mehran University of Science and Technology (MUET) and Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS). "There shall be a vice-chancellor of the university who shall be eminent scholar or 'distinguished administrator'," reads the amendment, concerning the appointment of bureaucrats, to sub-section (1) to the 1972 Act. "The procedure completely undermines the principle of strong academic credentials that are needed for the job of the VC. The law treats the post as if the VC has only administrative responsibilities and not academic ones," observed Dr Shah, adding that now even a registrar can become the VC.

Another provision opposed by the teachers was the one granting special favour to the VCs of MUET and DUHS who can be given a third tenure on the post. The VCs of the rest of the government universities can serve for only two tenures of four years each.

10 points

University teachers across the province had staged protests as soon as the 2013 act was passed and put forward 10 recommendations for legislation in the act. These included appointing the VC and Pro VC from among the university professors, limiting the VC's age of retirement to 65 years, authorising the university syndicate to appoint the registrar, controller, bursar, chief accountant and resident auditor and empowering the academic council of each university to devise the admissions policy, among others.

"We find it strange that the qualification requirement for appointment of a BPS-19 Assistant Professor is PhD but a postgraduate can become a BPS-22 vice-chancellor," commented Dr Arshad Memon, the general secretary of the MUET teachers' association and an executive committee member of FAPUASA Sindh chapter. He lamented that the teachers' demands were not taken seriously. "The bureaucratisation of the universities will greatly damage the institutions and will stunt their growth."

Dr Arfana Mallah, president of the Sindh Universities Teachers Association (SUTA), pointed out that a Supreme Court's ruling has barred the 'person specific' legislation. "We have been deceived after being repeatedly assured that our recommendations will be included in any amendment to the law."

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2014.