HYDERABAD, Feb 6: Office-bearers of the Federation of All-Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations has rejected the tenure track system and proposed model university ordinance regarding appointment of teachers.

Speaking at a press conference at the press club after three-day general body meeting of the organization, they called for President Gen Pervez Musharraf's intervention to save the higher education in the country.

They said the TTS did not provide job security to teachers and after its implementation they would be at the mercy of administration because it was based on temporary appointments.

They said there were hardly 22 per cent of PhDs in the country and teachers were not being given scholarships.

They wondered how teachers could do research and cater to the needs of their families with poor salary packages.

The office-bearers pointed out that the government had earlier deleted the TTS from the MOU but now introduced it separately in the universities. They claimed that University Acts of 1972, 1973 and 1974 were comprehensive enough that they could help government and teachers to improve the standard of education.

They said the general body meeting of the organization had an in-depth study of the Higher Education Commission's working and teachers' problem.

They proposed that if the government wanted to improve the existing system of education it should invite the organization to discuss defects and flaws. They called for an end to interference of chancellors in the university affairs.

They said the recent statement of President Bush that it was at his behest that the education reforms were being introduced in Pakistan had vindicated the organization's stand.

The criticized intervention of foreign agencies, saying they could not propose any educational system for the country.

They said the universities were not giving grade-18 to those who had returned to the country after doing PhDs on their own but they were offering handsome salary packages to those who had refused to come to Pakistan after doing PhDs on state expenses.

They said it were not the generals but teachers and their students who had made country the nuclear power.

They demanded that university teachers in Sindh should be given NOCs by their respective VCs and they should not be asked to obtain it from the chancellor through bureaucratic channel.

They expressed a concern over the way efforts were being taken to implement the MUO through back doors and made it clear that such efforts would be resisted.

They reminded the chairman of the HEC of his promise to the organization in 2003 that the MUO would be kept in abeyance but it seemed that it was being implemented without consultation with them.

The general body criticized the attempts to unstable the education system in Pakistan through the MUO and resolved to resist all such attempts to implement it in any form and in any part of the country.

The organization urged its members to come out against the anti-teacher policies of the HEC.

The organization warned that instead of implementing the MUO and TTS in its present form, a meaningful dialogue be initiated with them.

The organization appreciated the NWFP government for abolishing the self-finance scheme in public universities and demanded that nature of evening programmes in universities be converted into regular second shift programme with same fee structure of morning shift.

Prof (Dr) Khawaja Haris Rasheed, Prof (Dr) Sohail Barkat and Dr Mahar Mohammad Saeed Akhtar spoke on the occasion.