KARACHI: Teachers at the Federal Urdu University for Arts, Science and Technology (Gulshan campus) boycotted classes for the fifth consecutive day and staged a sit-in outside the administration block on Tuesday.

They presented a list of demands to the university administration, which included releasing appointment letters to lecturers who were chosen for the post last year, fixing and releasing salaries of appointed teachers, payment of arrears to retired teachers and organising the pending selection boards and making subsequent appointments from June 18, 2022 so that the seniority of selected candidates wasn’t affected.

The university has been facing a crisis since long and recently its vice chancellor Dr Athar Ata sent his resignation from the post to President Arif Alvi, who is the varsity’s chancellor. A meeting of the varsity’s Senate is scheduled for Thursday (tomorrow) at the Sindh Governor House to appoint an acting vice chancellor of the university. The meeting would be chaired by President Alvi.

“We call upon the university administration to take up our demands in the university’s Senate meeting schedule on Sept 15 [tomorrow] so that the chancellor takes measures to tackle the financial as well as the administrative crisis affecting the university,” Dr Faisal Javaid heading the teachers’ association said.

Addressing his colleagues at the demonstration, he also urged the administration to immediately complete the scrutiny process of the advertised vacant posts.

The teachers would take their protest to the next level, if their demands were not met, he warned.

Published in Dawn, September 14th, 2022