HYDERABAD, Feb 15 The Sindh chapter of the Federation of All-Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association has accused the Higher Education Commission of discriminating against university teachers of Sindh, and demanded removal of all vice-chancellors who had retired from service.

The federation's secretary Prof Badar Soomro said at a news conference at the press club on Sunday that teachers of public universities in the province were facing discrimination in promotion and award of scholarships and demanded that they be treated like their counterparts in the Punjab and Peshawar universities.

He said that in all hardship cases of Punjab and Peshawar universities, the lecturers, assistant professors and associate professors who had served for years, had been upgraded by the university authorities and the HEC, but the university teachers of Sindh had been completely ignored.

He said that 30 lecturers, 208 assistant professors and 82 associate professors of Mehran, Sindh, Karachi, Agriculture, Quaid-i-Awam, Shah Latif and NED universities were eligible and qualified for upgradation but they were deprived of their rights.

He wondered why the same rule was not being applied to the university teachers of Sindh which had been applied to the university teachers of Peshawar and Punjab.

He rejected the argument put forth by the HEC about unavailability of vacant posts, unavailability of foreign scholarships and ban on promotion of non-PhD teachers when it came to teachers of Sindh.

He expressed fear if the university teachers were not upgraded they would leave for greener pastures as the private sector companies and corporations were offering huge salaries to qualified engineers.

Mr Soomro demanded that an eminent educationist should be appointed as permanent chairman of the HEC to solve problems of university teachers and alleged that the acting chairman of the commission knew nothing about academic issues.

He regretted that the scholarship of the teachers who had been sent abroad for PhD had been stopped and demanded resumption of their scholarships to enable them to complete their assignments.

Citing another example of discrimination, Mr Soomro said that PhD scholarships had been sanctioned for 1000 teachers of Punjab, 600 for the NWFP and only 59 for Sindh.

To a question about financial crisis, he said that if cuts had to be made and they were unavoidable they should be made in the construction of buildings and not in academic funds.

Buildings without academic activities were of no use, he argued.