In many professions, it’s easy to overemphasize the importance of the job. But in the case of our educators, and teachers it’s more likely that people will miscalculate the importance of their role in our society. After analyzing many studies and articles it is clear that the economic and social benefits of knowledge and skills one acquired from university education is a critical source for transforming society, job creation, developing skills, cultivating informed citizenship, and disseminating knowledge are core concerns. University teachers are certainly the most significant members of our society. The students of today are the leaders of tomorrow, and teachers are that critical point that makes a child ready for their future and inspire in them a drive to do well and succeed in life.
But, unfortunately when these dream developer are striving for their own basic rights then how a society can expect a most valuable organ to work properly and efficiently. At the time of its independence in 1947, the nascent nation of Pakistan had only one university and then with the passage of time the number grows and definitely the devotion of teacher can never be denied in this whole process of development. But the problems associated with the education system of Pakistan are lack of adequate budget, lack of policy implementation, defective examination system, poor physical facilities, lack of teacher quality, lack of implementation of education policies, directionless education, political pressures and many more to discuss. Even in this critical situation our teacher produced many prominent and significant names in the field of education, health, politics and many others.
Government policies and rules are meant to facilitate the employees but when these rules start confiscating of degrading the employees then the protest is a must. Teacher teaches the society to regarding their basic rights but when they themselves have to fight for their own basic rights then no shame can be bigger than this to point out the inefficiency of the rules and implementation of the policies. APUBTA, the All Pakistan Universities BPS Teachers Association is country-wide representative forum, working for BPS faculty to protect their rightful privileges by pointing and discussing the unfair practices concerning promotion, salary, performance-based incentive, study leave, etc. APUBTA indicated that BPS faculty make up 88pc of the entire faculty in public sector universities but face systematic and multifaceted discrimination. While the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) is aimed at specifying the same issues as APUBTA had already indicated. So, it is the dire need of time to collaborate in this mission.
FAPUASA is a sign of federation to fight for the rights of university teachers and secure their dignity and unity.
In 2004 TTS was introduced without justification and analysis for improvements or highlighting the weaknesses in the BPS system, so the teachers were divided into two groups contrary to the fact of one country two systems. Anyhow, FAPUASA, amazingly comprising mostly of BPS leaders is supposed to be the federation of all teachers and must secure the rights of both groups or must striving for merging the two systems or at least must keep a balance in securing their equal rights.
The All Pakistan TTS Teachers Association (APTTA) securing its own rights through a full support of FAPUASA and APUBTA being the supreme group comprising of 88% of teachers is striving independently then how FAPUASA shall claim the status of the federation for university is indeed a big question on its existence.
An open full support for APUBTA regarding all legitimate rights must be the prime responsibility of FAPUASA to secure and ensure a balance of rights in the two groups. FAPUASA must also play a vital role until both the groups are merged and a special pay system is introduced but this may be implemented phase wise and on the choices of the existing employees as the law never allows a sudden change in service structure of government employees.
The call for protest held on October 21, 2021 by APUBTA must be owned by FAPUASA as the collaboration with the right partner can be the key to unlocking desired results. Associations that collaborate not only have an opportunity to learn from each other’s mistakes, successes, failures, workflow, but also they gain an inclusive understanding of the perspective. But I am afraid that if this synchronization doesn’t happen and APUBTA is successful in time scale promotion for BPS teachers without full support of FAPUASA then legally, morally and ethically there shall be no federation of all universities. So, it is the right time to lead from the front.
The author is PhD from the University of the Punjab and is working as Lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, The Women University Multan.
