Cuts In Higher Education And the Generality of Fightback

Cuts In Higher Education And the Generality of Fightback

By Dr Riaz Ahmed Associate Professor, Applied Chemistry, Karachi University, Karachi Pakistan 0322-2990708 August 25, 2010 It happened in a matter of two days. The dormant working people of universities in Sindh suddenly woke up and surprised the mightiest of education-zars throughout the province. First the Sindh University employees struck for payment of rise announced by the federal government and within a matter of hours over 4000 Karachi University employees were on strike too. They are also demanding ‘Leave Encashment’ and ‘Eid Advance’, both payments are made every year but this year the universities are refusing to pay the due by claiming austerity measures. On August 25 the Vice Chacellor’s office was locked by the non-teaching staff of Karachi University. Employees in public sector in general are demanding higher wages, the anger due to rising prices is leading to a boil. A section refuses to accept austerity, to pay for the crisis of the federal government.

On August 24 papers reported the Sindh University employees have struck, the strike continues till August 26, the agitating employees had told the media. Taking cue from the Sindh University the employees at Karachi University also decided to go for a strike. I was there at Karachi University when the non-teaching staff struck. It was a sudden outburst. Early in the morning a pamphlet by the elected body of employees had announced a rally in front of KU administration. Generally regarded as a inept association guided by MQM, its call for rally struck a cord. Thousands assembled at the KU administration which was locked by the agitators. The protesters agreed to go for a strike starting that very moment. The university came to a stand-still.

Sensing escalation the KU administration announced concessions. 50 percent increase in salaries alongwith last month arrears will be paid this month and employees will get 50% of their basic pay as leave encashment. But this did not satisfy the strikers. The went on and on the second day of strike locked the Vice Chancellor’s office. One of the employees Amjad said ‘we used to get full salary as Leave Encashment, now they are giving 50 percent of basic pay which is next to nothing’. A clerk argued ‘they are not going to give the Eid Advance, how are we going to celeberate eid?’ A union rep said ‘the university has money to hire two Pro-Vice Chancellors, two Director Finance, payment of billions of rupees on medical charges of elites, luxuries of the higher ups and nothing for the employees, we are not going to accept this nonsense.

Leave Encashment is one month salary paid to employees who have over 90 days of leave unutilized.

Eid Advance is an adavace salary paid at the end of Ramzan and it is deducted throughout the year from the salary.The administration had thought that the 50 percent raise in pay will satisfy the strikers, but it under-estimated the anger.

The next day every department saw employees striking, labs were shut down and most of the class rooms were closed. Usually the argument goes that university employees don’t work, but when they struck it was obvious that it is on strike that they really don’t work. The power arrived from unity amongst the working class inspired many.Scores of employees were seen in departments across campus discussing the impact of strike. On August 25 the Vice Chancellor did not appear till 1pm, the VC office was locked by the employees.

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The last time employees of Sindh universities struck was in 2009. Then the issue was the contract employees and increase in pay. That strike spread to other universities but did not effect the employees of Karachi Unviersity. The later had struck in 2002 when the then Vice Chancellor started an ‘operation clean-up’ at Karachi University targeting employees and teachers. That struggle united the teachers and employees into a long campaign against higher education reforms. The Vice Chancellor was removed but the Higher Education Commission started to implement reforms in part.

Now these reforms have come full circle.

Over the years the teaching community has resisted the reforms by HEC. However the net result has been gradual acceptance of HEC policies. The crisis of low pay, longer work hours, fatigue due to duties in morning and evening program have effected the participation of teachers and employees in their own union activity.

The present crisis in universities has its roots in the structural changes started by Higher Education Commission in 2003. At the moment the crises appears as that of funds not provided by the Federal Government. But it is the continuation of World-Bank formulated policies of the dictator General Musharraf that are being pursued by the Federal Government. The HEC is being used as a tool to further implement the structural changes. At the moment the cycle goes like this. The university teachers and employees see VCs not paying the due salaries and allowances; university administrations blame the HEC for not providing the funds; the HEC blames the Federal Government for not providing the funds; and the Federal Government blames …who? Of course the World Bank.

As a result terms like ‘financial crises’, ‘floods’, ‘recession’, are used to justify what essentially are the cuts proposed by the World Bank in 2000. World Bank has, through HEC, introduced a slow-paced privatization of universities.

It was in 1998 that the World-Bank/Unesco formed Task Force on Higher Education in Developing Countries that tasked Henry Rosovisky and David Bloom of Harvard University which after incorporating over 40 education entrepreneurs from public and private sector (including the private LUMS chief and industrialist Baber Ali and the private Agha Khan University librarian turned VC Shams Kassim Lakha) and published a report labeled ‘Higher Education in Developing Countries – Opportunities and Challenges’. This report wishes to re-structure higher education in developing countries by two essential means. First, it proposes to transform higher education as a commodity instead of a public service. Second, it details a detailed plan of administrative changes aimed to concentrate powers of running a university in the hands of a few technocrats. The Rosovisky/Bloom report became the bench-mark for structural reforms throughout the developing world as it was pushed by the World Bank.

World Bank sponsored local national Task Forces, the Pakistani one called Task Force on Higher Education was chaired by Lakha and Tariq Binori, another former World Bank employee. Their report outlines the intent of shifting the 2001 balance of public vs private university enrollment from 80:20 to 40:60 in 5 years time. It contains a massive restructuring plan to attain this goal. The Higher Education Commission was tasked to formulate a new university ordinance which was strangely labeled Model University Ordinance (MUO) that was imposed by General Musharraf in October 2003.

But a huge campaign led by teachers at Karachi and Punjab Unviversity turned the tables and General Musharraf was forced to retreat. However it was imposed on Fedral Urdu University and military controlled University of Foreign Languages amongst some other ‘newly formed’ universities.

However the HEC continued and started to implement the MUO in pieces. Initially research was targeted. Teachers were divided by HEC as it started offering cash against research publications. The universities have no funds for research and hence HEC involvement started as it collaborative with

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the best amongst the academics to divide the fraternity. Grants were allocated to those who performed well according to HEC criteria. As a result a tiny fraction of teachers who already had access to some funds started to get rewards and grants while the huge majority was never able to meet the ‘high standards’ of HEC. Next 300 MS/PhD scholarships for local and foreign universities were announced, yet again a tiny fraction of the students were rewarded but the publicity was massive in the media. Gradually the HEC crippled the statutory bodies of universities which were still running under the 1973 Act. First the Board of Advance Studies, then the Academic Council and later the Syndicates were paralysed. By 2006 HEC was essentially the super-Vice Chancellor of all universities. The initial ‘billions’ of dollars that were poured by World-Bank to fund the ‘reward’ exercises to favoured institutes and professors had now dried up. At the same time HEC overlooked how the needs of universities were being fulfilled.

As HEC squeezes grants while blaming the Federal Governemnt the real agenda of World Bank reforms is being implemented. And this is to force universities to commercialize and so move towards their privatization. Almost all universities in Pakistanrun what is called Evening Program. This is a massive source of resources. Last year the Karachi University balanced its budgets by utilizing over Rs 600 million it had earned from its evening program, this total budget was around Rs 1400 million.

This year KU announced a budget of Rs 1900 million, the HEC approved only Rs 900 million. As a result the university is ‘forced’ to cut down expenses. And it is cutting down where the cuts are easier and that is by raising the fee from students and cutting pay of staff.

Stragely enough universities throughout Pakistan do not show the income from Evening Program as part of their budget. HEC overlooks this massive irregularity. Its representatives sitting in university Syndicates point out that the budget does not show earning from Evening Program but the cash flow from HEC continues. The HEC wants the universities to show how the universities can earn from their own resources so as to make a basis for cutting down university grants. The bureaucracy in universities is mindful of this intention. Hence while the HEC does not provide the required funds for the budget the universities show the money used from ‘Evening Program’ income as ‘internal borrowing’. Surprised? Go and have a look at the KU budget of 2008-09. It even gives details at the end stating how several institutes are being run from the earning from Evening Program (shown as internal borrowing) while these institutes have no role in Evening Program earnings. Last month KU paid salaries from ‘internal borrowing’, earlier in March it paid teachers their Leave Encashment from ‘internal borrowing’, throughout the year major payments are made from ‘internal borrowing’.

The financial crises earlier this year, the floods now, are being used by the government as an excuse to go for massive cuts. The HEC is part and parcel of this exercise. It only pretends that it is not getting funds, but in reality it intends to ensure that the universities are run by ‘internal borrowing’ while HEC funds a few universities to show them as proof of its excellence. The examination standards, the additional number of years and the dozens of conditionalities are being imposed on students forcing a massive 50 percent to drop-out of the Karachi Univeristy in past two years. The result is more and more students are being forced to leave higher education and turn to private universities.

Public sector universities are on the path of becoming fully commercialized. But by following that route they are losing out on whatever research base they had and are gradually becoming another source of private education for the few. Once again ‘quality’ is being used to effectively reduce the quantity.

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In general the state is once again withdrawing from fulfilling its important role in education. The strike by Sindh and KarachiUniversity employees is about pay but is actually the result of commercialization of higher education. By forcing a strike the employees of universities are overcoming many of the barriers. They are forcing the political parties to distance from the ‘cuts policy’ being imposed by the Federal Government via HEC. It is therefore a welcome step by employees of universities and it should get solidarity from teachers of the universities. It is time university students and staff join hands to retake what they have lost due to HEC in the past 8 years.

It is time to reverse the tide of privatization being pushed by the World Bank.

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