Up in arms: Stop penalising teachers for your own shortcomings, says PTU

The government has destroyed the education sector, Rana Liaquat says

LAHORE: Teachers must be given the respect they deserve, Punjab Teachers’ Union (PTU) general secretary Rana Liaquat said at a demonstration organised by the PTU in front of Lahore Press Club on Thursday. “The penalties and fines imposed on them by the government have caused teachers great financial distress…teachers must be paid their stipulated salaries.”

Scores of public school teachers gathered in front of the Press Club and shouted slogans against the government. They carried banners and placards and demanded that the government rescind the penalties and fines imposed on them. PTU central president Syed Sajjad Akbar Kazmi also participated in the protest.

Rana Liaquat Ali said the government had started imposing fines on teachers after conducting examinations set by the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, the Literacy and Numeracy Drive (LND) test and the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF). The burden of poor performance by students in these exams had been shifted onto teachers, he said. “This has caused us much financial hardship.”

Ali said that the government had been performing experiments in the education sector for several years. “When the experiments fail, they dump the blame onto teachers.” But the people responsible for such experiments – the policymakers – were never taken to task, he said.

He said that the provincial government had also gone back on its promise to upgrade the basic pay scales of teachers. He said, on January 27, the School Education Department (SED) secretary held a meeting with some teachers and promised that the teachers’ basic pay scale would be upgraded. “The SED secretary also indicated that the decision to handover schools to the PEF and that the decision to set up District Education Authorities (DEAs) would also be reviewed.” However, nothing has been done on either front so far, he said. “The teachers’ community is now worried about the government’s lack of interest.”

Ali said setting up DEAs and handing public schools over to the PEF was a “conspiracy” to destroy the SED. The government’s decision to handover 1,000 schools to the PEF was evidence of failure of the government’s policies, he said.

Thousands of teachers have been working on contract at public schools. Ali said despite the SED secretary’s orders teachers in many districts had not been promoted or given the teacher’s package announced by the government.

He said providing education was the government’s responsibility and teachers must be paid the salaries they were entitled to.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 18^th, 2016.