‘Implement PM’s package’: Teachers demand equal opportunities for growth

Federal government colleges demand merger with model colleges for similar incentives and facilities.

ISLAMABAD:

The teachers of federal government colleges are seeking the same list for their promotions as that of the model college teachers. Demanding the implementation of PM’s package ‘in letter’, the teachers said that they would not tolerate discrimination among their ranks.

The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) and Capital Administration and Development Authority (CADD) recently approved and notified the time-scale formula for teachers’ promotion, as announced by the Prime Minister (PM) in the last year’s teachers’ package. However, the teachers feel that the package, as promised by the PM, should be uniformly implemented.

According to sources in FDE, the directorate has made two separate lists, one comprising the model colleges teachers and the other for teachers of FG colleges. Also, their promotions would be made separately. However, this is not acceptable to the teachers of FG colleges.

A senior member of the Federal Government Colleges Teachers Association (FGCTA) Professor Tahir Mehmood said, if need be, the teachers of FG colleges would even go to the court for implementation of the unification component of the PM’s package, as the package clearly suggests that all the federal government educational institutions would be dealt with equally, without discrimination of facilities or incentives among the institutions or staff of these two categories.

He said that initially, the FDE should merge all the teachers of model colleges and FG colleges into one category, then a single seniority list must be prepared irrespective of their category whether he/she was appointed against the vacancy of model college or FG college. This would be helpful in promoting the teachers on seniority basis, he added.

So far, he said, only names of FG colleges have been changed as model colleges, but a lot needs to be done to bring the incentives of the FG colleges at par with the model colleges. “Under the unification package, there should be a single category of teachers without differentiating between the FG and model institutions,” Tahir added.

He said that only changing the name from FG to model is not sufficient to address the discrimination. Our seniority should be mixed in a single pool and these teachers must be cross-transferred to colleges, he added.

Presently, there are 20 model colleges with over 1,000 teachers whereas as there are 10 FG colleges with 700 teachers in them. “The government has just changed the names of FG colleges into model, apparently giving the impression that it has implemented the unification component of the PM package,” added another teacher.

When contacted, FDE DG Atif Mehmood Kayani said that PC-I for the up-gradation has been completed and sent to the Planning Commission for approval.

However, he said that there are complications in the two categories, as far as their merging is concerned. It would take time, but everything would be implemented systematically, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 1^st, 2011.