The Islamabad High Court is set to take up a petition filed by top professors of Pakistan’s leading universities seeking implementation of tenure and track system (TTS) and appropriate remuneration.
The petition was filed by 166 highly qualified faculty members from all across the country seeking action to avert brain drain in the country and to protect the country’s future in higher education. “Inaction on part of the Finance Division is causing colossal damage to teachers and if their grievances are not addressed immediately, it is bound to adversely affect the academic and research activities in the universities,” said Dr. Saadia Masood.
“The government must wake up and fulfill its commitment to keep highly qualified teachers, which make 8 percent of the country’s teaching staff at universities, motivated,” she said. According to details, the government introduced the TTS in 2007 with an idea to improve the quality of education and to hire highly qualified teachers who could help improve the quality of education, promote the culture of research and assist students. The TTS ensures a 35 percent gap between the BPS, offered to the rest of teaching staff. However, over time the TTS holder professors are being paid less than the BPS holder teaching staff. The government constituted a task force and designed a policy and approached these teachers. Around 4,000 PhD holders, majority of which were foreign qualified, quit their jobs to become part of the government’s special initiative on education. In addition, the HEC started a faculty development program under which hundreds of students were offered scholarships for higher studies up to PhD. The government signed an agreement with them making it compulsory for them to return, after completion of studies, and serve in Pakistan for at least three years.The government, since 2007, revised their salaries and packages only three times in the last 17 years.
They were initially offered special packages and are no longer competitive but there is no clarity how and who will address their grievances. In 2021, the finance division through the Higher Education Commission signed anMoU that ensured that their pay structure would be 35 percent higher than the normal pay structure.
