HYDERABAD: A teaching assistant at Sindh University (SU) had pleaded the Saudi government pay him Zakat in one of over half a million Saudi cables released by WikiLeaks on June 19.
The WikiLeaks exposé has laid bare the straits in which a large segment of Sindh University’s teachers find themselves ensnared. “I am very poor. My salary (stipend) is only Rs15,000. I have to handle 35 family members,” reads the application submitted by the teaching assistant, Ramzan Kolachi, in November 2013. His job requirements at SU are the same as that of a BPS-18 lecturer, who are eligible for monthly salaries of up to Rs80,000.
“I ask you to give me Zakat because you are rich and I am poor,” said Kolachi, who teaches in the Department of International Relations. “I have parents, brothers and sisters. I have to make arrangements for their better education and health. But it is impossible without your help because I do not have even home [sic].”
What prompted Kolachi, who completed MSc in international relations from Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, in 2007 and has been teaching at SU since February 2012 to make this supplication is anybody’s guess.
But for this teacher his deed was justified. “I was in need of financial assistance,” he told The Express Tribune. “When I received a pro forma two years ago about this assistance, I filled it.”
He pointed out how difficult it is to eke out a living with this paltry stipend of Rs15,000. “Time and again, we requested the authorities to increase the stipend but to no avail,” he said. “Over all these years my financial needs and responsibilities have kept increasing.”
Kolachi applied for a lecturer job and scored 74 marks but a female candidate, who also received as many marks, was selected after the interview. Dr Arfana Mallah, former leader of SU Teachers Association and incumbent member of SU syndicate, acknowledged that Kolachi cleared the selection board but could not be appointed as a lecturer. “The university is very unsympathetic about RAs’ [research associates] salaries,” admitted while talking to The Express Tribune.
Plight of RAs and TAs
According to Kolachi and other teachers working in similar capacity, there are between 100 to 112 research associates, research assistants and teaching assistants at SU. Registrar Ghulam Muhammad Bhutto confirmed that all of them are being paid a fixed stipend of Rs15,000, a sum lower than the salary of a public primary school teacher. The last increase in the stipend was made in 2011, Bhutto added.
But low income is not the only plight. Some teachers point out exploitation and discrimination and others say lack of job security. “Our yearly job contract depends on the recommendation from the department head for extension, which exposes us to exploitation,” complained a female RA, who requested anonymity. “Most of the time we have to work for longer than the 12 credit hours a week [which is the requirement for lecturers] but at one-fourth of the lecturers’ salary.” The RAs are not even allowed earned or maternity leaves, which other permanent teachers are entitled to take, she said.
Assistant Prof Amar Sindhu, a rights activist and a teacher at SU’s department of philosophy, agrees that job security should be given to RAs and TAs. “There is nepotism when it comes to the appointment of new teachers. Many qualified RAs and TAs don’t make it through the selection.”
Two years ago when Dr Arfana Mallah was the secretary of the teachers’ association, she fought to increase the stipend to Rs25,000 but failed to convince the authorities. The association’s current president, Dr Ayaz Keerio, agrees that the issue of stipend and job security is genuine and that their salaries should be at least Rs30,000.
Notwithstanding the statements of teachers’ association, over half a dozen TAs and RAs who spoke to The Express Tribune argued that the teachers’ leaders have so far failed to fight their case seriously.
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