K-P govt to regularise 40,000 teachers soon

Officials say summary with names sent to concerned dept; move hailed by associations

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government may soon regularise the services of around 40,000 schoolteachers who had been hired across the province after clearing tests conducted by the National Testing System (NTS).

Earlier on August 11, K-P Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had issued a letter spelling out the conditions for upgrading and regularising contracts of employees in all provincial departments.

According to the letter, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, the chief minister directed that a consolidated list of all posts – on which appointments had been made after clearing the NTS and ETEA tests in all provincial government departments - should be submitted to the secretariat through a summary along with the associated financial implications.

The letter further directed that a list of all such posts in all departments which were pending upgradation should also be submitted for consideration through a summary to the finance and establishment department along with financial implications of such upgradations.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led provincial government had hired around 40,000 male and female teachers in schools throughout K-P after they cleared tests conducted by the NTS.

Teachers associations had demanded that such teachers who had been hired in different cadres, should be moved off contracts and regularised.



An official of the K-P Elementary and Secondary Education Department, while wishing not to be named, shared that the department has submitted the record of all teachers who had been appointed after clearing NTS tests, to the concerned department.

Meanwhile, the K-P Elementary and Secondary Education Advisor Najiullah Khattak confirmed to The Express Tribune that the provincial government was planning to regularise the services of all NTS based teachers.

He added over the past four years, the provincial government had appointed around 40,000 male and female teachers in primary and high schools in the province. He added that the services of all these teachers would be regularised soon. Apart from them, Khattak said that the provincial government was planning to hire 15,000 more teachers this year.

Teachers welcome move

The move has been welcomed by teachers associations.

All Primary Teachers Association Peshawar District President Azizullah Khan hailed the government’s decision to regularise the service of teachers hired after clearing NTS tests and appreciated the initiative.

He said that this had been a longstanding demand of contractual teachers. Azizullah further said that teachers were living in a state of uncertainty since they did not have any surety about their jobs. But now, after regularisation, the teachers can focus on their work, which would ultimately improve their performance and help students.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 30^th, 2017.