FAPUASA forms joint action committee on TTS

By Rasheed Khalid
September 01, 2024
A representational image students picture outside university building seen in this image. — University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences website/File
A representational image students picture outside university building seen in this image. — University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences website/File

Islamabad : Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (FAPUASA) has constituted a Joint Action Committee (JAC) to handle issues faced by the faculty members of public-sector universities on Tenure Track System (TTS).

The step was taken as the teachers’ body felt that teaching community’s issues are accumulated since long and are not being discussed and addressed properly.

To address specifically the issues of TTS faculty, the first meeting of the JAC was held online on Friday where representatives of sixteen (16) universities having faculty on TTS participated.

The issues were discussed at length and it was proposed to devise a comprehensive strategy to resolve the problems.

It observed that at present, our brilliant minds are leaving the higher education sector and a large proportion of them are even leaving the country worsening the brain drain. It was resolved that JAC will arrange meetings with the Chairperson HEC, Federal Minister of Education and Professional Training, Primer Minister and President of Pakistan to communicate the long-awaited issues of TTS faculty to save higher education in Pakistan.

It may be mentioned that TTS system was introduced and later forced upon universities by Dr Ata-ur-Rehman who was appointed as Chairperson of Higher Education Commission with the rank of Federal Minister by Gen Musharraf regime.

Initially welcomed, the system created divisions in the faculty and became controversial. There are 85,000 teaching faculty on BPS and 4,500 on TTS in whole of Pakistan making TTS only 5.2% of the total. Tenure Track System puts more emphasis on promotion indicators like research, publications etc and less on teaching which led to declining standards of teaching in higher education over the years.

There are other issues in TTS system like medical facility, pension, extra salary etc and overwhelming majority of even TTS faculty in public-sector universities of late reportedly supports a unified salary structure in institutions of higher learning and research in the country.