ISLAMABAD:
It has been a month since the notification assuring the time-scale formula for promotion of federal government colleges’ teachers was issued. Yet the issue has had no visible progress.
After a prolonged boycott of classes by the teachers, the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) and Capital Administration and Development Authority (CADD) in October approved the time-scale formula for teachers’ promotion, as announced by the prime minister (PM) in 2010.
However, the teachers are yet to benefit from the package due to some “complicated conditions for their promotions”, according to Federal Government Colleges Teachers Association (FGCTA).
FGCTA Secretary General Professor Tahir Mehmood said, “The teachers are confused by the perplexing conditions laid down for their promotions.
The administration is again creating hurdles and it seems it would take another year for the teachers to avail their rights.”
As per the notification, the teachers are entitled to be promoted to the next grade immediately, he added.
Mehmood said they are contemplating over reinitiating pressure tactics for the implementing of the notification and also for removing ambiguities in up-gradation scale, which is an integral part of the package and is missing in the notification.
“We are really fed up of the attitude of the bureaucracy, but at the same time we are also concerned about the students whose studies would suffer if we take to the streets again,” he said.
“But if the bureaucracy continues this attitude, we might not have an option,” he added.
He again blamed CADD Joint Secretary Rafiq Tahir for “creating this mess”. He maintained that the joint secretary is “incompetent and unable to handle the file work” as he is a teacher by profession and not a professional bureaucrat.
He said that as Tahir is going to retire next month, he is not taking interest in the implementation of the package.
The teachers passed a joint resolution reaffirming their resolve to sideline the CADD joint secretary from the issue.
FDE Director General Atif Kayani assured that the process of teachers’ promotion has already started and the promotions will be granted after thorough evaluation of more than one thousand teachers in the Departmental Promotion Committee’s Annual Confidential Report.
He said only teachers that meet the criteria will be promoted.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 22nd, 2011.
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