Negotiations: Schoolteachers call off protest until Eid

LAHORE: The schoolteachers protesting on The Mall for four days called off on Monday their sit-in until Eid holidays following successful negotiations with officials from the School Education Department (SED).

Punjab Teachers’ Union (PTU) president Allah Bakhsh Qaiser told The Express Tribune the government had accepted their demands and that they had called off the protest until after Eid. “SED officials have agreed to undertake in writing that our demands will be met.” “We will now wait until the end of Eid holidays. If our demands are not met by then, we will again resort to protest,” Qaiser said.



He said that under the agreement, the government would review the list of public schools being handed over to the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF). He said that the government had also assured them that their demand regarding upgrade of schoolteachers’ pay scale would be met.

A spokesperson for the school education minister said that the government was not privatising any public school. He said that only the schools performing poorly and those with low enrollment were being handed over to the foundation. He said that such schools would work under a public-private partnership. Teachers at these schools would be transferred to other public schools in their tehsils.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2016.