Service structure: College teachers to boycott classes to press for demands

Protest campaign starts with rally in Lahore.

FAISALABAD/MULTAN:

Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PLA) on Thursday started a province-wide strike against the government’s failure to announce a service structure for them.

A list of demands in the statement issued by the PLA also included a one-step upgrade for teachers who have served in a scale for a long period of time, immediate regularisation of the services of teachers working on contracts and a withdrawal of the Promotion Policy of 2010 and abolition of boards of governors in colleges.

PLA divisional president Riazul Haq said federal government as well as Balochistan and Azad Kashmir governments had already announced updated service structures for teachers. He condemned the provincial government for delaying the issue and said it was unfair to teachers in the Punjab. “We need some safety nets so that we can serve the people and then retire in peace,” he said.

He said none of the efforts meant to promote education would bear any fruit as long as the teachers were not facilitated.

He said after the failure of a series of dialogues with senior Education Department officials, the PLA was left with no option but to boycott classes all over the province.

He said the campaign had started with a protest rally in Lahore on Thursday. He said PLA members from all over the province marched from MAO College to Punjab Secretariat in support of their demands for a service structure, regularisation of contract employees’ services, withdrawal of Promotion Policy of 2010 and abolition of BoGs.

He said the boycott would continue for as long as the government refused to accept their demands.

Elsewhere, PLA Multan vice president said there would be no classes in colleges in Multan and other southern cities of the province until their demands were met.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 28^th, 2011.