Karachi: Due to the fact that a large part of the annual non-developmental grant of the public universities is spent on the pension of the employees, work has now been started on the change in the service structure of the teachers at the federal level.
It is likely that the new service structure from the federal HEC will soon be handed over to public universities with major changes. In this regard, on behalf of the Federal Higher Education Commission, a committee consisting of its officers and vice-chancellors of some public universities is finalizing the service structure with new proposals.
According to the recommendations of this committee, initially, the regular post of lecturer is being abolished in government universities across the country, while in the new service structure, teachers will be obliged to pay pension fund from their monthly salary on the pattern of provident fund. will be deducted.
The above proposals of the committee are being submitted to the HEC Commission for approval in consultation with the Federal Finance Department, after which it can be handed over to the universities.
According to the sources, HEC also wants to oblige the universities for the upcoming budget that the concerned public universities should refrain from spending any more non-developmental grant as pension fund.
On the other hand, when contacted by “Express”, Federal Higher Education Commission Chairman Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed said that we are taking all such proposals to the Finance Division for final consultation in this regard, after which it will be sent to the commission. will be served.
He revealed that according to a conservative estimate, the universities are spending about 40% of the annual non-developmental grant of HEC of Rs.65 billion on the pension of their employees. Fund has not been established to pay the pension and the recurring grant is going to the pension.
Chairman HEC clarified that the federal government is not stopping the provision of grants to provincial universities, we have requested 125 billion rupees from the finance division for the annual budget of 2024/25, but how much grant will be approved in the budget? Nothing can be said about this yet.
Chairman HEC also said that the annual budget of public universities has not increased for the last 6 years, while only the salaries have increased by 135%.
It should be noted that most of the country’s universities, including Sindh, do not have a pension fund, and these universities pay pensions to thousands of employees only with the non-developmental grant received from HEC. There is a university where the pension fund has become close to 3 thousand million and the financial burden on the university in terms of pension payment is unlike other universities.
On the contrary, the monthly payroll of Karachi University is 400 million rupees, of which 135 million rupees are paid for pension, similarly, the monthly payroll of Urdu University is 200 million rupees, of which 34 million rupees are non-developmental. Grants are given.
It should be noted that the committee working under the chairmanship of former vice chancellor of Haripur University and consultant of HEC Islamabad, Dr. Anwar Al Hasan Gilani, has so far reached the conclusion in its proposals that future teachers should also pay their salaries to the pension fund. and this deduction has been given the name of contributory pension fund.
Further, according to the recommendations of this committee, in order to reduce the financial burden, the regular teaching cadre in the universities will now start from assistant professor instead of lecturer and the junior position like lecturer will be on contract basis who will be given fixed pay keeping in mind the market situation. will go
Moreover, teaching is the primary responsibility of university faculty, so teaching excellence can be judged on research output, teaching load, research grants and supervision of graduate students, and now senior faculty also have to increase their contribution in relation to teaching load.
It should be noted that HEC has been taking a position for a long time that despite the current financial situation of the country and no increase in the grant, a significant amount is released from the annual grant for the purpose of pension. There is a need not only to establish our own fund, but also to reconsider other allowances given along with the salary.
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