The protest of the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association Joint Action Committee and the Islami Jamiat Tulaba (IJT) was not just remarkable for the fact that 40 teachers and students were arrested, or that it attempted to protest outside the Punjab Assembly, as for the fact that students and teachers were jointly protesting. As teachers are supposed to ensure discipline among students, and thus to prevent protests, their joining hands indicated the seriousness of the subject of their protest, which was the establishment of Boards of Governors at 26 colleges, currently government-run, of the province. The handling of the protest itself showed that the peace of the MPAs was left undisturbed, even if the cost was a baton charge of the architects of the nation as well as the future generation which will have its running in future. Some MPAs have lied about their degrees, and thus cannot be expected to know about colleges or their problems. The idea of colleges being run by Boards of Governors probably gained momentum after colleges were placed under district governments. These boards served several purposes, all welcome to the provincial government. It allowed the provincial government to name its favourites to the boards, and thus gain a voice in the running of institutions it had been shut out from, it allowed them to exclude the district governments from the running of the colleges, and it managed to escape from the nitty-gritty of tertiary education. While professors fear being subjected to all sorts of arbitrariness from boards with the power to dimiss them, students are worried about the possible escalation in fees ordered by boards which have been cut loose by the provincial governments. Both fear that the move will be followed by revisions in the subjects offered, as well as in the courses, for which colleges might not be prepared, but which boards, composed of non-educationist cronies of provincial ministers, might approve under the pressure of a whimsical government. These fears are based on what has already happened at colleges given autonomy, and of hospitals placed under boards. The government must consider these grievances sympathetically, and must also remember its duty to ensure the education of the citizenry so that it is duly equipped to take a productive part in the workplace of the future. The provincial government must not only ensure that it does not abdicate this basic function, but that it is not seen as doing so. The students of the teachers, and the parents of the students, who were roughed up, will not share that view unless the government takes action accordingly.