Daily Times

The All Pakistan Tenure Track Faculty Association (APTTA) on Monday expressed serious concern over alleged failure of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in resolving longstanding issues of TTS faculty.

The APTTA said that if compared with the regular pay scale systems across the country, faculty under the TTS system has been facing ambiguities since the very inception of this system. “The TTS faculty has become a mark of excellence on one hand, the very dual and mostly unclear structure of the TTS system, on the other hand, has been a major cause of their exploitation by the university administrations as well as by the HEC,” the APTTA said in an official statement.

Besides this, it alleged, the TTS faculty is facing a number of problems out of which job security is the top of the list. Over the years, lack of clarity on the statutes of TTS system has not only caused termination of a number of highly qualified TTS faculty but has also compelled many others to leave the country in search of safer and conducive working conditions.

The absence of well-crafted and structured policies for timely promotions, leave, health and pension benefits further adds to the ailments of this community. Moreover, strange enough is the fact that the HEC has also banned this highly competent segment from taking administrative roles in the universities.

“A number of TTS faculty have faced serious consequences and penalties due to TTS statutes being mis-implemented by the university administration in their case. A number of endorsement cases of TTS faculty are still pending due to mishandling by the HEC,” the association recalled.

Recently, the APTTA said, due to lack of clarity and consensus on TTS rules between the HEC and some of the universities, a number of universities were barred from hiring and promoting TTS faculty, thus jeopardizing their due right of professional growth. And last but not the least, the salaries of the TTS faculty have not been increased for the last five years while salaries of counterparts on equivalent regular scales have grown by a handsome of 35 percent so far, causing a great deal of de-motivation among the TTS faculty.