Librarians demand time-scale promotions
The librarian attends a phone call to answer queries of people regarding availability of books. PHOTO: EXPRESS
Librarians of Islamabad Model Colleges have demanded the introduction of a time scale for their promotion.
The librarians serving in Islamabad Model Colleges remain in their initial basic pay scale with no promotions till retirement.
The librarians who are appointed initially in grade-17 through Federal Public Service Commission scrutiny, retire in the same scale after attaining the age of superannuation.
The current structure of the education system denies them to be promoted.
A librarian working in a local college on the condition of anonymity said that promotion chances were zero for the librarians who are appointed through the FPSC.
He said that teachers get promotions under the four-tier promotion formula, Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) officers and non-teaching staff also get promotions but there is no such mechanism of promotion for librarians.
“We demanded of the authorities concerned for the time scale but to no avail,” he said.
A female librarian said that Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh had devised a promotion formula for college librarians and promoted many librarians but the FDE has not put in place a mechanism to promote senior librarians who have spent over 20 years in the same scale.
“Because of this, most librarians want to switch jobs. We are stuck in an alley,” she said.
Federal Government College Teachers Association President Dr Rahima Rahman said that librarians were the major contributors to the academic set-up of the FDE.
“They facilitate both the students and teachers. They are also members of various college committees constituted for the smooth running of the institutions. Regrettably, they face difficulties in career development opportunities such as promotions,” she said adding that no employee wants to be retired in the same scale.
She demanded of the authorities concerned to introduce a mechanism for time scale up-gradation of college librarians to compensate for their service.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 20th, 2022.