CADD promotes over 2,300 teachers

Most of those granted time-scale promotion are female teachers

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Administration Development Division (CADD) has finally approved the time-scale promotions of over 2,000 trained graduate teachers of the capital.

A notification to this effect was issued by CADD on Friday.

A departmental promotion committee had approved the promotion 2,397 trained graduate teachers (TGT) from basic payscale 14 to 16 around two months ago.

Per the notification, as many as 1,529 female TGT teachers, 672 male TGT teachers, 98 physical training instructors (PTI), 11 male PTIs, 41 drawing masters, 18 drawing mistresses, 19 male librarians and nine female librarians.



The teachers had been waiting for promotions for the past six years owing to the absence of promotion rules for their cadre. The lack of promotions had given rise to fears among teachers that they may retire in the same grade.

On October 14, 2011, about 1,250 deputy headmasters (BPS-16) deputed in the capital’s schools under the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) had been redesignated and upgraded as Secondary School Teachers (SSTs). Their basic pay scale (BPS) was also upgraded to grade-17.

Those upgrades came in the wake of a 2010 announcement for a one-time upgrade for all teachers by the then Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.

According to the teachers, around 800 women and about 400 men are among those affected by this policy.

While the FDE redesignated the teachers as SSTs, it failed to draft any rules for this cadre over the next five years. The delay, teachers alleged, was due to bureaucratic snags.

With no rules for this new designation, neither were new teachers hired in this cadre nor were existing teachers promoted, even as teachers in other cadres continued to get promotions at regular, prescribed intervals.

On November 17, 2016, the FDE submitted a draft to the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) proposing amendments to the promotion and redesignation rules.

The teachers have complained that apart from the one-time upgrade in 2011, they had not received any promotion due to the absence of any pay scale formulae.

Moreover, some teachers complained that they had neither been promoted before 2011 up gradation, nor after it. They expressed fears that they may retire in the same grade.

Malik Ameer, the president of School Teachers Association who had attributed the lack of promotions to rising unrest among teachers, thanked CADD secretary Nargis for taking a keen interest in the matter and for promoting such a large number of teachers.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 17^th, 2017.