Second shift teachers unpaid for months

PESHAWAR:

The provincial government has not paid the salaries of the second shift teachers in primary to higher secondary schools across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for months, leaving them in a financial crunch amid high cost of living.

In order to increase the literacy rate, former Pakistan Tahereek-e-insaf (PTI) government initiated second shifts in primary, middle, high and higher secondary schools in most of the districts.

Monthly salaries were fixed at Rs20,000 for second shift’s primary school teachers, Rs25,000 for middle and high school teachers and Rs30,000 for higher secondary school teachers.

Ironically, the salary for Class IV employees in the second shift was fixed at just Rs5,000 per month. However, the unemployment rate in the province was so high that even highly educated youth applied for the jobs despite meager wages.

It is worth mentioning here that the provincial government had fixed Rs32,000 as the minimum wage for the outgoing financial year, but it had failed to implement those regulations in public sector departments.

The Education Department in the province used the pretext of a financial crisis to halt the process of timely payment of salaries to teachers working in second shift schools.

As a result, second shift teachers and Class IV employees have been unable to receive their monthly salaries for several months.

The Education Department and provincial government officials have kept a mum on the issue despite repeated protests by the employees. The Education Department’s officials told The Express Tribune if the situation remains the same, it is possible that the provincial government may decide to shut down the project altogether.

It may be recalled that last year in August, K-P government released funds for double shift schools in 25 districts of the province.