Displaying solidarity with the federal government, universities in Sindh have decided to observe two off days a week from Saturday, October 15 (tomorrow).
Varsities of the province want to play their part in the Centre’s decision to implement the cabinet’s energy saving plan for recovering Rs 300 billion circular debt in six months.
Vice chancellors (VCs) of 15 universities, including the engineering and medical sectors, met under the auspices of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC)’s Vice Chancellor’s Committee in its regional office on Thursday.
This was the first meeting of the HEC committee after the commission’s devolution under the 17th amendment of the constitution.
The meeting had a three-point agenda: (1) two-day off a week as per the federal cabinet’s energy saving plan; (2) tuition and hostel fee of students belonging to rain- and flood-hit districts of Sindh; and (3) revision of PhD students’ allowances and enhancement after increase in inflation.
The VCs said they have decided to observe two-day off a week to implement the federal government’s energy saving plan for recovering Rs 300 billion circular debt in six months.
It was also decided that the varsities that are not interested in implementing the Centre’s decision should take up this issue in their academic councils and if the councils reject this proposal, then they could overrule the federal cabinet’s decision.
The meeting also discussed the ways to cover the syllabi if two-day off is observed from Saturday onwards.
VCs of some varsities suggested increasing the hours of teaching to meet the shortcomings that could develop due to an extra off day.
However, VCs of medical varsities raised objection on two-day off, saying research and operation work could be adversely affected.
Following that, the committee decided that operation and research work would be carried on Saturday at medical universities, but teaching would remain suspended.
The second agenda of the meeting was the fee of students who belong to flood-affected districts of the province.
The participants of the meeting decided that the tuition and hostel fee of such students would be waived off; however, VCs of some varsities raised objection over this because of cuts in educational grants.
Finally, the committee decided to waive off fee of such students and to send a summary to the Sindh chief minister for extra grant for the relief of students of the affected areas.
The third agenda of the meeting was enhancement of PhD students’ allowances, for which it was decided that a summary would be prepared and sent to the provincial chief minister for approval.
