ISLAMABAD: The All Pakistan Tenure Track Association (APTTA), a representative body of TTS faculty across Pakistan has set a deadline of February 3, 2023, for Higher Education Commission (HEC), asking it to withdraw the new funding policy notification and in case of failure a sit-in would be staged in front of the Commission.

The Association held a press conference at the National Press Club, Islamabad, where the President and General Secretary of the association, Dr Yasar Shah and Dr Tanveer Shehzad, stated that the HEC’s sitting chairman had jeopardized the jobs structure and future of 4,500 tenure-track faculty members of universities in Pakistan. The office bearers informed the press that the HEC had revised the funding policy of the TTS.

This has serious repercussions for the job security, annual increments, and promotion of the TTS faculty because the HEC’s share of TTS funding is going to shrink under the revised funding policy.

Universities have already stopped hiring new TTS faculty despite the fact that the same faculty has been the best-performing component of university faculty for two decades as per the HEC’s recent survey published in 2019.

The APTTA president conveyed that the TTS system was working very well before the arrival of the current chairman HEC. Since the current chairman took charge, universities have doubled down on violating the statutes governing the TTS system because the HEC is disowning the TTS faculty which was launched by them.

Therefore, the APTTA has also demanded that the chairman HEC should ensure compliance of the TTS statutes in the universities in true letter and spirit. In addition, the PM-approved complete salary is also being not given to the TTS faculty.

The APTTA cabinet has given the HEC a deadline of February 3, 2023, that HEC should withdraw the new funding policy notification issued on December 16, 2022, and restore the old funding policy. If the chairman of the HEC fails to do so, the APTTA will stage a protest and sit-in in front of the HEC until their just demands are met.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023