Service matters: Protesting teachers issued show cause notices

LAHORE:

The government on Friday issued show cause notices to college lecturers and professors protesting for better pay packages and working conditions.

Meanwhile, the teachers striking vowed to continue their protests till their demands were met.

Zahid Shaikh, the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) president, told The Express Tribune, “The government is trying to intimidate us... Some of the teachers have also been threatened with sacking if they do not resume classes. But we are not wavering.”

Shaikh said that the protest will be joined by school teachers on January 17. If, he added, the demands were not met, they would continue the strike till January 26. “We will surround the Punjab Assembly building and sit-in in front of it indefinitely, if required,” he added.

A Higher Education Department official of told The Tribune that further action on the show-cause notices would be taken after consultation with the higher authorities.

PPLA Central Vice President Shahid Chaudhry explained that there were four major demands.

He said they wanted the government’s time-scale formula implemented effectively. The formula also called the 8-7-6 formula provides that a lecture recruited in BPS-17 should be promoted to the next grade after eight years in service, second promotion after seven more years and the third promotions after six further years in service.

The second demand, he said, was for an upgrade of all college teachers’ jobs. The lecturers, he said, should be given BPS-18.

The third demand was for a five-tier service structure for the teachers rather that the three-tier service structure currently in force.

Currently, 50 per cent of the college teachers are serving in BPS-17, 34 per cent in BPS 18 and 15 per cent in BPS-19. Chaudhry said the teachers wanted 40 per cent teachers to work in BPS-17, 35 per cent in BPS 18, 20 percent in BPS 19, four per cent in BPS-20 and one per cent in BPS 20.

The fourth demand, he said, was to raise PhD and M Phil allowance to Rs10,000 and Rs5,000, respectively.

Chauhdry said that a committee of teachers and government representatives had in November 2011 agreed on starting a Punjab Higher Education Foundation, but the government representatives later backed out. He accused the finance secretary of sabotaging the negotiations.

Muhammad Ahmad, a public college teacher for 15 years, said some of his students were now working in higher scales than him. “This is what forced me to boycott classes and join the street protest,” he said.

Ahmad said he is not the only one to be denied promotion over the years. He claimed that there were around 4,000 such lecturers.

According to official figures, 7,252 posts for lectures and professors are currently lying vacant in the Punjab.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2012.