Contract teachers demand regularisation

Most of them do not meet criteria, says official


Our Correspondent October 20, 2014

RAWALPINDI:


The Punjab Teachers’ Union (PTU) Rawalpindi chapter has demanded that contractual teachers be regularised without further delay.


In a statement issued here on Saturday, PTU office-bearers said that services of around 1,800 teachers have not been regularised since they were inducted in the education department in 2010.

The PTU office-bearers said that the contractual teachers were not entitled to perks and privileges which the permanent teachers enjoy.

“They are not even allowed to take leave, but they are still regularly engaged in polio drives, elections and other state campaigns,” said PTU District Secretary-General Raja Shahid Mubarak.

He said that the issue of regularisation has been taken up with education authorities umpteen times, but no step has been taken by them to regularise them. He claimed that instead of regularising them, the authorities were continuously changing rules to stop their induction.

He said that on one hand, the department was facing shortages of teaching staff in schools, while on the other hand they were not facilitating the contractual teachers in terms of job security, perks and privileges and other facilities.

Dr Bashir Gondal, an educationist, said that uncertain future of contractual teachers was affecting their performance. “The contract policy introduced by Pervez Musharraf in 2004 almost destroyed the education department,” said Dr Gondal.

He said the policy aimed to keep the teachers in constant fear of losing their jobs.

He suggested that the education department either should recruit permanent teachers after forming a teachers’ performance evaluation body to assess past performance.

“The slogan of an educated Punjab cannot be realized by merely distributing free textbooks. There is a need to focus on teachers’ training to get the desired results,” said PTU Provincial General-Secretary Rana Liaquat. Meanwhile, an education department official said that most teachers recruited on contracts did not meet the necessary criterion.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19th, 2014.

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