After a day-long protest by Tenure Track System (TTS) faculty member on Monday against their overwhelming issues, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has assured them to resolve their issues ‘within the current week’.
Over a dozen TTS faculty members under the banner of All Pakistan Tenure Track Faculty Association (APTTA) gathered outside the HEC secretariat located here in H-9. Holding the banners and placards inscribed with their demands, the faculty members remained consistent while protesting despite the capital police personals slightly tried to resist and trying to keep them abstain from holding protest. The protestors also threatened that they will continue their protest till fulfilment of their genuine demands that is their fundamental right. Their steadfastness urged the HEC authorities to bow to knees.
On asking, an APTTA representative told Daily Times, that as the HEC is a major relevant authority in introducing and implementing the tenure track teaching system in the universities, which is why they are protesting and asking HEC to resolve the core issues being faced by them.
The teachers said that if compared with the regular pay scale systems across the country, faculty under the TTS system has been facing ambiguities since the very inception of this system. “The TTS faculty has become a mark of excellence on one hand, the very dual and mostly unclear structure of the TTS system, on the other hand, has been a major cause of their exploitation by the university administrations as well as by the HEC,” the teachers said.
Besides this, they alleged, the TTS faculty is facing a number of problems out of which job security is the top of the list. Over the years, lack of clarity on the statutes of TTS system has not only caused termination of a number of highly qualified TTS faculty but has also compelled many others to leave the country in search of safer and conducive working conditions.
The absence of well-crafted and structured policies for timely promotions, leave, health and pension benefits further adds to the ailments of this community. Moreover, strange enough is the fact that the HEC has also banned this highly competent segment from taking administrative roles in the universities.
“A number of TTS faculty have faced serious consequences and penalties due to TTS statutes being mis-implemented by the university administration in their case. A number of endorsement cases of TTS faculty are still pending due to mishandling by the HEC,” the APTTA recalled.
It added that due to lack of clarity and consensus on TTS rules between the HEC and some of the universities, a number of universities were barred from hiring and promoting TTS faculty, thus jeopardizing their due right of professional growth. And last but not the least, the salaries of the TTS faculty have not been increased for the last five years while salaries of counterparts on equivalent regular scales have grown by a handsome of 35 percent so far, causing a great deal of de-motivation among the TTS faculty.
The HEC, however, said that some of the faculty representatives met with HEC senior management and held a detailed discussion, adding that they have been assured to resolve their issues and an official circular would be issued accordingly. “It was decided that within the current week HEC will issue three notifications,” the HEC media wing said in a statement.
It said that Chairman Tariq Banuri justified to the faculty members that the Commission (18-member board) has already made a decision to accept their genuine demands.
Among the notifications to be issued this week, the HEC claimed, one relates to an increase in tenure length of TTS faculty members from six to nine years, with the revised criteria. While the other two notifications relate to clarification regarding administrative positions previously held by TTS faculty as well as the future course of action for holding such positions.
Similarly, it added, two more notifications will be issued in a month’s time. One for the revised salary structure of TTS faculty members and the other one for their pension scheme in light of decisions of the Commission, HEC’s governing body.
It was further discussed that HEC will also consider the other issues raised by TTS faculty members.
