Teachers working in government-run schools said on Thursday they were conditionally calling off their strike after the chief minister assured them that their demands would be met.
At least 10,000 government schoolteachers had gone on strike earlier this month. The teachers refused to perform their duties, saying they had been denied promotions for 30 years. “It is unprecedented in Pakistan’s history that there are teachers who have been working in the same pay scale for the past three decades,” Shahid Hussain, the president of the Gilgit-Baltistan Teachers’ Association told The Express Tribune on Thursday.
The teachers, however, warned they would resume the strike if the government adopted delaying tactics. “We will now wait and see how matters progress…we have been assured by the chief minister that five of our demands would be met,” he said.
Classes in government-run schools across Gilgit-Baltistan had been called off after the teachers went on strike. “This doesn’t happen elsewhere in the country. Promotions of teachers between Grade 9 and Grade 14, and Grade 16 and upwards are due,” Hussain said.
He said that Chief Minister Mehdi Shah had assured a delegation of teachers, which met him on Wednesday, that the government will accept their demands, including advance increment in salaries and regularisation of services of project teachers.
Last week, teachers in Gilgit-Baltistan had threatened to continue to boycott classes until annual examinations.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 11th, 2011.
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