Ruling party rams through controversial university bill

The ruling Pakistan Peoples Party once again used its numeric power in the Provincial Assembly of Sindh to pass a controversial bill pertaining to handing over powers of the 24 public sector universities to the chief minister despite a protest and walk-out from opposition parties who termed the bill a bid to destroy the education system, reports The Nation.

The discussion and consideration of the bill titled Sindh Universities and Institutes Law Amendment Bill 2018, which was deferred from the last proceedings, continued on Friday 13 April and the bill was later approved from the house with a majority vote as the opposition parties tore copies of the bill and staged a walk-out from the proceedings. The bill was earlier passed on 9 March with a majority vote from the assembly but was sent back by Governor of Sindh Muhammad Zubair Umar to the house for reconsideration, using his one-time power to reject the bill.

Terming the bill an attempt to destroy the education system in the province, the opposition leader in Sindh Assembly Khawaja Izhar said that dictatorial amendments were made in the universities bill. “We are against giving excessive powers to the chief minster over universities’ affairs and would have opposed the bill even if there was a chief minister from our party,” he said.
Full report on The Nation site