FAPUASA announces boycott of online classes, demands removal of HEC chairman.

Islamabad -- Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Associations (FAPUASA) has condemned the Higher Education Commission (HEC) chairman and his team for launching policies to damage the higher education sector and discouraging research culture in the country. The federation, a representative body of the public sector universities faculty, has announced no confidence on HEC and its Chairman.

It was decided that if the legitimate demands of FAPUASA are not fulfilled by June 30, 2020 FAPUASA would boycott all HEC policies, including boycott of online teaching. Further, FAPUASA demands from the government that HEC Chairman should be replaced and a competent person be appointed, who would resolve the issues of faculty and further save higher education sector of Pakistan.

The federation showed disappointment on the attitude of Chairman HEC towards Academia, who has miserably failed to address issues of academia and keep his commitments, multiple times in past two years.

Representatives from Provincial Chapters and Academic Staff Associations (ASA) from various Universities of the Pakistan attended the meeting.

FAPUASA strongly condemned and opposed the attempts to impose a politically influenced 'Public Sector Universities (Amendment) ACT 2020' of Punjab Government. Any such attempt to reduce or compromise the autonomy of Universities would be met with resistance by faculty. FAPUASA does not accept the proposal to appoint retired judges or bureaucrats, as head of Syndicate.

The members expressed deep concern towards the injustice done with the education sector and universities, in-terms of annual budget. Unfortunately, Universities have been pushed to the wall by the government.

FAPUASA finds that the role of HEC has been extremely discouraging towards universities as HEC has completely failed to acquire required budget from the government and convince the government regarding the budgetary requirements of the universities.

Due to the failure...