Going Unpaid: Fata teachers protest salary delays

SHABQADAR: Being a teacher in the tribal areas is a thankless job. Not only do they and their students have to deal with living in the midst of an insurgency, they also often go unpaid. The government has not paid their salaries in six months, and has yet to offer permanent employee status to most of them. On Thursday, several teachers of community schools from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) staged a protest in front of the Fata Secretariat in Peshawar.They chanted slogans against the government for not paying their salaries.The protest ended only when Fata Education Additional Director Hashim Khan personally assured the protesters that their grievances would be addresed. The leader of the Fata community schools teachers union, Khanadan, told The Express Tribune that their talks with the Fata Administration had gone well.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2012.