Sindh Professors, Lecturers Association white paper

SPLA to release white paper on education department
Hyderabad, Nov 27: Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association would release a white paper after Eidul Azha about alleged moral and financial malpractices in the provincial education department, said the association's president Athar Hussain Mirza at a news conference on Wednesday.

The central president of the association Athar Hussain Mirza, secretary general Himmat Ali Pitafi, vice-president Ayoub Mari and others demanded that the prime minister, president and chief minister should take notice of excesses of Sindh education minister against college teachers.

They urged the authorities to take notice of moral and financial malpractices in the education department, right from the college directorate to Sindh secretariat. They said the only answer the minister had to numerous problems of the college teachers was that "SPLA should not indulge in politics". Teachers in 256 colleges had been waiting for promotions for past many years and many of them had reached retirement age, they said.

They said that teachers in Mirpurkhas, Larkana and Sukkur had been transferred to Karachi and even female teachers had been posted in remote places. The SPLA president said that 60 per cent of colleges were being run without permanent principals and in-charge principals were working on their posts as OPS, while senior teachers had been superseded by junior ones.

He said the condition of laboratories was deplorable because no scientific equipment had been supplied over the years. No less than 2,600 posts of lecturers had been vacant, which had seriously affected academic activities, he said. Similarly, he said, many posts in senior grades were vacant.

He rejected a statement given by the spokesman for education minister that 3,500 college teachers had been promoted and said that only 915 teachers had been promoted.

He demanded that on the pattern of other provinces, time-scale promotion system should be introduced in Sindh, college teachers should be upgraded on the pattern of university teachers, parity should be maintained in salaries of teachers working in rural and urban areas, ad hoc teachers should be paid salaries for the past six months, non-attractive allowance for the teachers working in rural areas should be restored and permanent principals should be appointed in colleges on seniority-cum-merit basis. Dawn

SPLA accusations baseless
Karachi: The Sindh Professors and Lecturers' Association's (SPLA) allegations regarding the promotion of teachers are baseless, Sindh Education Minister Pir Mazhar Ul Haq has said.

The minister said that SPLA members should avoid making such allegations and pay more attention towards the education process. He added that the government has never posted any teacher on personal grounds and all transfers and postings were made according to the requirement and on the basis of merit basis.

He said that the government promoted 521 lecturers to assistant professors recently and further promotion would be made soon. He added that some headmasters and headmistresses of schools were also promoted.

Moreover a spokesperson of the senior minister said that the SPLA was "spreading propaganda" against Haq because the minister was "not entertaining the SPLA". The spokesperson added that the government has lifted ban on teacher's union and SPLA's accusation in this regard are not true.

The government has been trying to promote teachers to higher grades but there were some genuine reasons which caused delay in the process, said the spokesperson, adding that, they do not have good numbers of professors in grade 20 and most of the candidates have not submitted their Annual Confidential Report.

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15,000 jobs to be provided to youth
Karachi: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah announced on Thursday that 15,000 jobs would be provided to the youth in the province through the Sindh Public Service Commission.

Addressing a press conference after inaugurating a media cell near the Bilawal House, he said that Rs10 billion have been earmarked for development in Karachi.

He said that a broad-based development programme for all cities of the province would be launched soon.

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DHA college for women to initiate MA English programme
Karachi: The University of Karachi has granted affiliation to Defence Authority Degree College For Women Ph-VIII to initiate a two-year MA English programme based on semester system.

A DHA press release on Thursday quoted Administrator DHA Brig Khalid Tirmizi hailing the decision of the KU and expressed the hope that the principal and faculty of the college would leave no stone unturned to develop the institution as a centre of excellence for the newly introduced discipline of English.

He said the courses of English literature and language should be so designed that the college produces dynamic and enlightened graduates who have the ability to express themselves effectively both in written and oral expression.

The classes are scheduled to begin from January 1, 2010. The college is already running MA Economics classes since 1997. Admissions to the above two master's programme have already started.

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Urdu, a sweet beautiful language
Karachi: Urdu is a sweet and beautiful language and is still loved and learnt in Bangladesh, despite the trauma of the separation of East Pakistan, after which it was presumed that there will be no prospect for Urdu in the new country (Bangladesh), Dr Kulsoom Abul Bashar, a professor at University of Dhaka, has said.

Dr Bashar was in Karachi recently to attend the 2nd International Urdu Conference. She is currently a professor at the Department of Persian, University of Dhaka and has Masters degrees in Urdu and Persian from the same university. Dr Bashar, who has done her PhD from Mumbai University, India, is one of the many people in Bangladesh who enjoy learning and teaching Urdu language despite the fact that her mother tongue is Bengali.

Dr Bashar said that after the creation of Bangladesh, many people thought that Urdu would not survive because Bengali would be the national language of the new country. She said, however, that Urdu became popular and more people began learning the language. She added that presently more than 10 PhD holders in Urdu language teach around 300 undergraduates and graduates at the University of Dhaka's department of Urdu.

"People were attracted towards Urdu through Bollywood films, which have Urdu songs and dialogues; Pakistani drama serials of the late 1970s and 80s also played a part," she said, adding that another reason for the survival of Urdu was that it was taught in the Medressahs of Bangladesh. "Urdu is taught in Madressahs all over the subcontinent, from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu and from Maharashtra to Assam; Bangladesh is no exception" she said.

University of Karachi (KU) Department of Urdu Chairman Dr Zafar Iqbal said that languages have no frontiers, and Bengali, Urdu and Hindi are inter-connected with each other.

Dr Iqbal has attended a number of Urdu Conferences in Bangladesh and hosted many teachers of Urdu from Bangladeshi universities and knows the basic facts about the unexpected growth of Urdu there. He credits the stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh, commonly called Biharis, for retaining their language (Urdu) despite all the hardship that they have encountered for more than 20 years. "They are the people who have guarded their cultural asset, Urdu, zealously," he said.

Moreover Dr Iqbal added that Urdu is equally popular in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and it acts as the Lingua Franca for the people of the subcontinent. "I think it is the cultural bond that has kept the language alive in all these countries," he said. "It is interesting to note that 60 percent of the people who have decided to learn Urdu are Bengalis. It was not compulsion to learn the language for business or teaching purposes. It was the love for the language." The news

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Teachers boycotted classes
Dadu: Primary school teachers boycotted classes in Dadu, Mehar, Khairpur Nathan Shah and Johi and took out a rally here on Thursday, which terminated in a demonstration outside the National Bank in protest against registration of case against 23 teachers.

Dadu town police registered the case on a complaint lodged by the bank manager Ali Bux Charn who accused 23 teachers, including office-bearers of Primary Teachers Association of holding him hostage and subjecting him to torture during duty hours.

Office-bearers of Dadu chapter of PTA Abdul Rehman Panhwar, general secretary Mansoor Kalhoro and Lala Haider Qureshi said that in addition to the 23 nominated in the FIR, 20 more teachers had been booked.

They alleged that the bank manager had lodged the FIR to hide corruption in the bank. Police used teargas and batons against the teachers who were protesting against the bank and registered case against them, they said. They said that police were conducting raids on the houses of PTA office-bearers and primary teachers. They would boycott classes in Dadu if the case was not withdrawn, they warned.

The protesters later observed a token hunger strike outside the press club and demanded cancellation of FIR. Dawn

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