IBMS teachers demand regularisation of services

Peshawar: The teachers of the Institute of Business and Management Studies, NWFP Agricultural University, have demanded of the university administration to regularise their services and approve proper service structure for them.

Speaking at a news conference here on Thursday president of IBMS Teachers Association Shah Hassan said the institute should be given an autonomous status on the pattern of Institute of Management Sciences, Hayatabad if the university administration did not want to accord the status of a complete institute to the IBMS.

Flanked by other male and female lecturers of the institute, Shah said that IBMS was set up in 1998 on self-finance basis. He said the institute had produced several thousands graduates in management, computer and information technology disciplines so far, but its teachers had been working on contract basis without having any service structure.

The teacher said the institute had enrolled around 5000 students, while the total number of students in the 12 departments and two other institutes of the Agricultural University were 2,372.

He maintained that for the 5,000 students of IBMS a total of 104 teachers, including three professors, had been appointed, while 190 teachers were there for the 2,372 students of other departments of the varsity.

He said the teachers of the institute since its establishment had been demanding of the university administration to announce service structure for them, but to no avail. Shah said after the IBMS, universities were set up in Malakand, Hazara, Kohat and Mardan, whose teachers had been regularised, but no step was taken for the regularisation of IBMS teachers. The university administration even ignored the directives of the government.

He said the university had been showing the students of IBMS as its strength to the Higher Education Commission so that maximum funds could be grabbed, but no penny was being spent on the IBMS. The institute was rather a money-making machine for the university as it gave an earning of Rs800 million during the last six years, while in 2009 only an amount of Rs180 million was earned from the institute.

Despite this no step for improvement of the working condition of teachers has been taken. The teachers have even been deprived of ad hoc relief announced for faculty members in budget.

He said the university had been exploiting the teachers. In this time of severe price hike, the teachers are given the minimum salary of Rs11,900 per month with only Rs600 annual increment, which is insufficient to make both the ends meet.

Similarly, the teachers of IBMS cannot avail HEC scholarship, as they are not granted study leave, he added. Earlier, the teachers staged a protest demonstration outside Peshawar Press Club to press the university administration for acceptance if their demands. The news