Knocking on doors: Ad hoc lecturers in FATA demand job security

Some say they have not been paid since September 2015

PESHAWAR: The ad hoc lecturers teaching in tribal areas said on Monday they would boycott classes and set up a protest camp outside Peshawar Press Club if their contracts as lecturers are not extended and their services are not made permanent.

“We have been demanding the government give us a proper structure so we can continue our work,” FATA Lecturers Association President Afsar Khan said during the protest outside the press club where dozens of ad hoc lecturers were present on Monday. Afsar added they have been asking for a proper service structure for 215 lecturers of various colleges in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas since 2011 but so far their requests have not been heeded by the Fata administration.

He said they worked under difficult circumstances due to the security situation in Fata. However, he said, the government is not ready to make them permanent employees. “On the one hand our demands are not being met while on the other the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government regularised 2,010 lecturers in 2014 under Ad hoc Lecturers (Regularisation of Services) Act, 2014,” said Afsar.

“Our salaries have not been paid since September 2015 but even then we are risking our lives by doing our jobs,” said Abdur Rashid Afridi, an ad hoc lecturer in Fata. He added the tribal areas need more trained teachers to run the few educational institutes there as the handful of teachers appointed there are reluctant to perform their duties.

In March 2015, the government announced the formulation of a committee to regularise their services. However in absence of action taken, teachers say they have no recourse but to protest for an extension of their services and permanency of their jobs.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2016.