The teachers of ICT colleges have demanded that the administrative control of colleges should be placed directly under the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MOFE&PT).
According to the teachers, the Federal Government Colleges hold intermediate, Graduate/Post Graduate level classes and offer a variety of disciplines for both girls as well as boys but unfortunately they have been treated like a primary school under the stereotype school management style of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE).
Professor Farhan Azam, Senior Vice President of Federal Government College Teachers Association (FGCTA) said, “College is a totally different world as compared to the school but most of the directions forwarded by FDE to the colleges are the same implemented in the schools starting from prep-class.”
Colleges are affiliated with Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad and are running B.S classes through the semester system while most of the schedule and yearly academic calendar issued by FDE do not match with the college routine.
Therefore, much confusion exists between the teachers regarding the classwork load, the classes’ timetable and other miscellaneous issues.
“It is a critical situation for colleges which have always been neglected.
Similarly the schedule of summer vacation observed for school does not match colleges because of the semester system. So higher educational institutions should be dealt with separately,” he suggested.
Anum Kaleem, Joint Secretary of the association said, “There is much difference between school and a college. Colleges are not the institutions which can be run on the standards, norms and practices of primary or secondary schools.”
Being higher educational institutions, the colleges should be treated at par with the other higher education institutions of the country. There are separate Higher Education Departments in the provinces which deal with colleges.
“Teachers in FG colleges are highly qualified, and have PhD, M.Phil degrees and such other degrees at par with university teachers and are teaching BS classes, not the nursery classes. There should be different policies for both the setups. Otherwise, management’s one solution fit to all can lead our colleges to further disaster and collapse. It is better that the colleges should be directly under the administrative control of MOFE&PT,” she said.
President of FGCTA, Dr Rahima Rahim said, “Regrettably colleges have been relegated in their status and privileges because of the umbrella of FDE which is basically not an institution to maintain higher education.”
All the instructions issued from FDE are general, both for schools and colleges. Our institutions are not empowered; our principals face multiple bosses. They are directed by Director Colleges, Director Academics and Area Education officers at the same time.
“They are not even empowered to grant more than two casual leaves to professors. College teachers legitimately deserve a fair treatment. To apprise the ministry, our central body held two meetings with the officers of ministry last week. The highups of the ministry demanded a comprehensive presentation about the issue. We will visit the ministry again after the preparation for the presentation,” she added.