Govt told to pay teachers

Senate panel concerned at harassment in educational institutions

ISLAMABAD:

The Senate Standing Committee on Education on Vocational Training and National Heritage has directed the federal government to pay outstanding salaries to contractual teachers and legislate to regularise them.

Committee chairperson Senator Rukhsana Zuberi said non-payment of salaries to daily-wage teachers has become an issue across the country forcing educators to go on strikes every now and then.

She suggested legislation on the matter will be the best solution.

A representative of contractual teachers told the panel that the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), which works under the federal education ministry, has not paid them since July.

Representatives of contractual teachers added that as many as 3,000 educators had been performing duties on a contract for over a decade and complained that neither are they did nor are they regularised.

The representative pointed out that many teachers are MPhils and PhDs.

The committee was informed that the Islamabad High Court had ordered the government to regularise contractual teachers but the order was not implemented.

The federal education secretary and FDE director said daily-wagers were hired to plug teacher shortages and they were paid from fees retrieved from students. This practice has now ended.

Officials said that the ministry now has to obtain a supplementary grant from the government to pay daily-wagers and the process takes time.

Government officials further told the panel that some educators were regularised on the directions of a committee under Khursheed Shah in 2011 but the the regularisation process has been frozen ever since.

The committee was informed that many seats for teachers were lying vacant as some educators approached the court for regularisation. Promotions were halted while a seniority list couldn’t be prepared as the matter was mired in litigation and the court issued a stay.

The officers said the establishment division, law and justice, and finance ministries must be included in the policy-making process.

Ministry officials told the body that a high-level committee has been formed in the law ministry for contractual teachers in basic pay scale (BPS) grades 1 to 15 while the issue of teachers above these grades has been referred to the FPSC). They added that the committee has 1,136 cases while FPSC had 551 and 1,724 educators would be hired altogether on vacant seats. The committee directed to pay outstanding salaries to contractual teachers immediately and to take measures to regularise them.

Harassment at schools

Senator Javed Abbasi said several complaints of harassment in educational institutions have surfaced recently.

He said the issue was raised in the senate but the response from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) was disappointing. Abbasi said that the commission wouldn’t give the same answer if it read the bill he had tabled as it suggested punishment for the offense as well as protective measures.

He said that the education ministry had also prepared some recommendations which could have been reviewed by the HEC. The panel decided to suspend the discussion on the bill until the next meeting.

The senate body also reviewed issues with the results of A-Level students.

Senator Zuberi said deliberations have been completed on a bill regarding the issue and reservations of the motion’s mover were addressed.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2020.