PESHAWAR: Administration of the University of Peshawar has convened a meeting of the syndicate to discuss various issues being faced by employees.
However, the employees said that the administration could have resolved most of the issues through an executive order to end the strike, resume academic and managerial activities in the largest public sector university of the province.
A statement issued by the university administration on Sunday stated: “Pursuant to the instructions issued by Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Muhammad Idrees in a meeting with protesting employees and committee members, the university of Peshawar scheduled the 440th meeting of the syndicate on April 15, 2022, to seek the amicable resolution for issues faced by the teaching and non-teaching staff of the university.”
It mentioned that the committee constituted in the light of the instructions issued by the Senate Standing Committee in its meeting on March 15 would complete its report soon about the issues raised by the protesting employees.
The committee is earnestly working to conclude its report and more meetings are also scheduled for discussing the workload policy for the teaching staff.
“The suspension of academic and managerial activities have caused unrest among the students and parents. Also, the meetings of the committee and syndicate would be affected adversely due to the non-availability of teaching and managerial staff. Therefore, they should call off the strike,” the university administration stated in the statement.
The protesting employees, on the other hand, rejected the university administration’s statement as they said that the administration was not sincere in resolving the genuine problems of the employees but was allegedly using delaying tactics to keep the matter pending.
Reacting to the statement, the protesting employees said that 70 per cent of their problems could be resolved through executive orders and no approval from the syndicate was required for them.
“But the vice-chancellor was not interested in overcoming the situation,” said Dr Jamil Ahmad, head of the joint action committee and central president of Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association.
