Wanting permanency: Ad hoc teachers continue protest for third day

Assembly speaker says committee to be formed to address regularisation

PESHAWAR: Speaker of the K-P Assembly Asad Qaiser said on Thursday a committee would be formed to address the issue of regularising the protesting teachers of K-P and Fata.

FATA Ad hoc Lecturers Association President Afsar Khan met the speaker at his office with a delegation of teachers appointed on an ad hoc basis at government degree colleges in South Waziristan and Kurram agencies.

Qaisar said he would take up the issues faced by these teachers with Minister for Higher Education Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani.

QWP lawmaker Meraj Humayun, JUI-F’s Uzma Bibi and PPP’s Nighat Orakzai visited the protest camp on Sher Shah Suri Road and assured the subject would be raised at the assembly floor. The protest camp is outside the Peshawar Press Club.



The teachers of K-P and Fata continued their protest for a third day on Thursday as no government official had turned up to hear their demand of job regularisation and payment
of salaries.

Talking to reporters, Pakhtunkhwa College Teachers Association President Nasrullah Yousafzai said authorities seemed least bothered about their issues. He said 215 teachers, including 100 women, were appointed to various colleges of K-P and Fata in 2011 on an ad hoc basis.

“We are working under miserable conditions,” Yousafzai said. “Our salaries were stopped starting November 2015 and the extension on our services has been withdrawn,” he added.

The association president pointed out both the minister for education and education secretary had not visited the camp to negotiate.



Flanked by Wazir Muhammad, Zahid Saleem, Zulfiqar Hussain, Muhammad Qasim and Iqrar Hussain, Yousafzai said protesting teachers boycotted classes in their respective colleges and would continue till their demands were fulfilled. The teachers warned of a protest across K-P on February 2, 2016.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 15^th, 2016.