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KU teachers not to do poll duties
KARACHI, Dec 10, 2007: The teaching faculty of the Karachi University (KU) has demanded the KU
administration to keep them stay away from the elections duties in the
forthcoming election-2008, as the Provincial Election Commission Office has
issued some KU teachers official letters, directing teachers to join election
training sessions from Dec 13, 2007 to perform election duties in the
approaching elections.
The teachers, involved in the fulltime academic and
research activities at the KU are worried about the demand of the provincial
election commission, Secretary, Karachi University Teachers Society (KUTS) Prof
Dr Abid Hasnain informed on Saturday.He said that because of the new
academic session of BS and MS for year 2008, scheduled to be commenced from
January 1, 2008 it would be difficult for the teaching faculty to do so, while
the approaching elections are also scheduled to be held on January 8,
2008.
He said, Such duties starting from training sessions to the days of
elections will be comprised of more than one month; however, the KU teachers are
completely involved in the degree examinations for regular and external
candidates at present. Later, they will be engaged in the post-examination
activities, including tabulation.
Conversely, the university is research
based organisation, where research and academic activities are continued around
the clock. There are about 700 teachers and more than 2500 supporting staff,
providing their services to over 24,000 regular students. Such students are
enrolled in an extensive structure of 53 departments and 20 world class and
highly reputable Research Centers and Institutes, under eight faculties of Arts,
science Islamic Studies Pharmacy Commerce & Business Administration, Law,
Education and Medicine. The university is also an affiliating, examining and
teaching body, and hence caters to the teaching requirement of 15 million
population of the city. University also arranges examination, result and degrees
of about 150000 students other than studying at the campus. Keeping in view of
such activities demanding the fulltime attention and efforts of the KU teaching
faculty, the decision of the provincial election commission to involve the
faculty in the elections-related activities is irrational and worthless. Such
decision may be resulted in the academic and research loss of thousands of the
students, affiliated with the KU, he justified.
Talking about the KUTS
stance on the issue, he said, The Executive Council of the KUTS has resolved
that the university teachers unlike other Government servants have different
cadres. Moreover, due to the sensitive nature of their job of handling
University students full-time, teachers prefer to stay away from the public
contact during election duties. This decision has been made in view of
maintaining smoother functioning of the University and keeping students in the
classrooms and disciplined. Therefore, KUTS urges University administration to
convey the non-availability of the university teachers on the logical
reasons.
He pointed out that the KU had been exempted from election-related
activities since 1993 to date but this year the government once again had tried
to involve university teachers in such activities.
He said, ôOn the demand of
KUTS, the KU Registrar Prof Rais Alvi, on behalf of the KU vice chancellor Prof
Dr Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui, had also written a letter to the election
commission office on Oct 4, 2007 to inform the officials of the provincial
election commission about the reluctance of the teachers towards election
duties. The Nation
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