Teachers demand permanent status

Say they have been working as contractual employees since 1995

ISLAMABAD: Teachers of Basic Education Community Schools (Bacs), a subsidiary of the Federal Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, have urged federal ministers to resolve issues of unpaid salaries, dilapidated condition of schools, and the release of non-development funds.

All Pakistan Bacs Teachers Association President Mazahar Hussain, Vice President Irshad Ali Muhammad, General Secretary Naimatullah, Joint Secretary Muhammad Nawaz and other officials have sent a letter to Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood, Federal Planning Minister Asad Umar, Federal Human Rights Minister Shirin Mazari, Islamabad Chief Commissioner and Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Amir Ali Ahmed, Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani and four provincial secretaries demanding that Bacs teachers should be regularised immediately.

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They said that the Bacs project has been operating under the federal government in the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) since 1995 and it was about time that these contractual employees are regularised.

BACS teachers said that during a 2011 protest for their rights, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan had promised to convert their contractual jobs into permanent ones if he ever came into power.

In a 2018 protest, they said that the federal government had principally agreed to their demands, but Mahmood and the education secretary never took any action.

Now that the federal government was planning to handover services of Bacs teachers to the provinces, they said that the government should do it only after making them permanent.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2020.