Schoolteachers protest IMU appraisals, additional duties

MINGORA/ PESHAWAR:

Primary schoolteachers took to the streets on Saturday in 20 districts across the province against the Independent Monitoring Unit’s (IMU) appraisal reports and the stoppage of salary payments.

A demonstration, led by All Primary Teachers Association (APTA) Peshawar President Azizullah Khan, was held outside Peshawar Press Club with a large number of schoolteachers in attendance.

Addressing the participants, Khan questioned how teachers can focus on their foremost responsibilities when the state keeps them tied up in polio campaigns, elections, and censuses. “The education emergency is an elaborate hoax and the future of our children is at stake,” he said. The irked protesters were holding banners and placards with slogans against IMU personnel inscribed on them.

The APTA representative said paycheques of 36 teachers in Swabi district and 106 in Mardan district have been withheld over IMU reports. “Their officials visited schools while teachers were serving in polio campaigns and filed reports of absenteeism,” he maintained, adding non-payment of wages over blind reportage is unacceptable. Khan also questioned the authenticity of the reports filed and said if the monitoring unit does not review them its officials will not be allowed to enter a single school across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

“Administering polio drops is not a part of a teacher’s job description,” he stated. The APTA Peshawar president demanded Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to relieve teachers of their additional responsibilities and release their salaries. “District administration officers have no right to suspend salaries. We are answerable to education department officials only,” he maintained.

Bonded labour?

Speaking to The Express Tribune, All Primary Teachers Association K-P President Malik Khalid Khan said primary schoolteachers are soft targets for the government which gets them to volunteer for every second project by force. He said as annual examinations draw closer, such decisions will only disrupt the learning environment.

No respite

As teachers across the province continually accuse the government of “bonded labour” during polio campaigns, the government exercised its authority to clamp down on the dissent. Ten schoolteachers were suspended and their salaries were withheld after they refused to participate in a polio campaign held in mid-February in Swat.

The APTA’s Swat chapter also organised a demonstration against the suspension and the government using schoolteachers as scapegoats to make up for lack of personnel.

The association’s office bearers gathered outside Swat Press Club, chanting slogans against the K-P government.

“The education department also deducted salaries of teachers who were on official leave, which is a violation of rules,” said Ali Roidad Khan, an APTA representative.

“It is only primary schoolteachers who are being forced to sign up or face suspension,” said Ibrahim Shah Baba, another office bearer of the association. Baba said if the government does not revise its policies, the association will launch a large-scale protest campaign from March 15.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 1^st, 2015.