ISLAMABAD: Ad hoc employees from public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) dispersed from their protest sit-in camp outside PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s Banigala residence after successful negotiations with the party leadership.

Just a day after schoolteachers from KP managed to get their demands approved, the ad hoc employees of universities gathered outside the residence of Mr Khan demanding regularisation of their jobs.

The schoolteachers had arrived in the capital in a large number on July 19 to press their demands and after intense negotiations the representatives of the provincial government agreed to regularise them. As a result, the teachers dispersed late on Tuesday night.

The contractual employees of public sector universities assembled at Banigala on Wednesday.

The KP chapter of the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) had announced to join the protest at Banigala on Thursday.

However, former minister of Kashmir Affairs and PTI central leader Ali Amin Gandapur assured the protesting employees on Wednesday evening that since contractual employees of public sector universities in Punjab had been regularised, the same would be adopted in KP.

“We have clear precedence and examples of regularisation in similar cases. The provincial government would consider your case,” he said.

As a result, the employees left the protest site by Wednesday night, but announced to resume their agitation if the demands were not implemented within a week.

Talking to media on Thursday, Secretary Information All Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Contract Employees Association Dr Latif Shinwari claimed that there were at least 8,000 teaching and non-teaching contractual employees of the universities waiting for regularisation for years.

He said every university had about 30 PhD degree holders who had been at the job for up to 13 years and still waiting for their regularisation.

He said thousands of teaching and non-teaching employees in 28 public sector universities in the province had decided to protest to push for their demands.

The PTI government in Punjab resolved a similar matter in April 2019.

Dr Shinwari warned that if the matter was not resolved in a week, thousands of employees would gather outside Imran Khan’s house in Islamabad.

He said a written demand had been made to Mr Khan when he was the PM that KP and Punjab assemblies had imposed a restriction that there will be no extension in the contracts of the contractual employees beyond three years.

Both KP and Punjab assemblies passed “Regulation of Services Act” in 2018 to save the services rendered by contractual employees in both provinces.

“On the basis of this act, all contract employees except the employees of public sector universities were regularised in KP and Punjab,” Dr Shinwari said.

He added that after the exclusion of university employees from regularisation process, both the governments were approached by the employees and the Punjab government regularised the employees in 2019 after a complaint was lodged in Pakistan Citizen Portal by Punjab universities contract employees, but the KP government failed to do it till now.

Published in Dawn, July 22nd, 2022