Daily Times

The Tenured Track System (TTS) faculty members working at the public sector universities across the country on Tuesday staged a protest outside Higher Education Commission (HEC) Secretariat, Islamabad against non-increase of their salaries from the government since many years.

A significant number of teachers gathered at the spot to press the authorities for acceptance of their demands to increase their salaries up-to 50 percent. They claimed that the salaries had not been increased for many years which put them in difficult economic circumstances in the age of massive inflation.

“It was highly discriminatory that some minor increase in our salaries only thrice in the past 20 years,” they regretted.

The protestors also demanded that the TTS faculty members’ salaries increase should be fixed with an increase methodology in monthly salaries of government employees, adding that the heirs of teachers who passed away during their service should be paid 50 percent of his/her salary until retirement.

Besides improvement in the pension policy of TTS faculty, they requested that the government restore their salaries accounts that are suspended for two years.

The protestors also criticized the authorities concerned of the HEC including the chairman for not being serious to resolve their issues.

They called off the protest temporarily when HEC authorities assured them to take up their issue with the government in a serious manner. The HEC authorities informed them that a letter has been written already to the government to address such issues in the varsities.

As per details, said teachers had also staged such protests in the past but produced no results.

According to the HEC, the TTS was introducedin 2002, as part of the strategy for reforming education quality. The objective was to attract better-qualified faculty members, and recognise and reward superior performance.

The first version of the TTS statutes was developed in 2003, and adopted and implemented by a few universities in 2005. These statutes were adapted from practices in vogue in universities in advanced countries, especially the Faculty Handbook of The University of New Mexico, USA.

Over time, the statutes were amended to address remaining gaps and cater to local conditions. The final version was finally approved in the form of “Model Tenure Track Statutes, version 2.0”, in 2008 and again updated earlier this year.

Prior to TTS, all faculty members in public sector universities were on the BPS (Basic Pay Scales) system. This system was viewed as being insufficiently attractive because of low salaries and lack of performance incentives. Promotions were strictly by seniority. Everyone had to wait in line, regardless of higher qualification or exceptional achievements in research or education. Experience in teaching or research had no precedence over administrative experience. PhD was not required for appointments as professors. Several had to retire as assistant professors because no senior positions were available.

According to the former chairman HEC Dr Tariq Banuri, the TTS introduced a more competitive system for recruitment, promotion, and tenure. It has led to some success, most importantly a change in mindset of academia towards research output and competitiveness. He narrated that this mindset has affected not only those formally enrolled in the TTS system but also those in the BPS system as well as the students planning their future careers. While the total number of faculty members has increased tenfold since 2003, those on TTS grew from 95 in 2005-06 to 3,515 in 2019-20. Similarly, the number of PhDs awarded in the entire pre-TTS period (1947 to 2003) was exceeded in only 7 years (2003 to 2010). Finally, research output (i.e., number of published papers) has increased from 949 publications in 2003 to 20,292 in 2020.