FATA lecturers seek regularisation of service

PESHAWAR:

Lecturers hired on an ad-hoc basis in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) held a protest over non-regularisation of their services on Monday.

A total of 154 protesters including 19 women gathered outside the Peshawar Press Club and demanded that the Khyber-Paktunkhwa (K-P) governor regularise their services.

They held banners and placards inscribed with their demands and chanted full-throated slogans against the government.

“More than 70% of the lecturers in Fata have been recruited on ad-hoc basis yet their services have not been regularised for years,” Amjad Jahangir, who was leading the protest, said. He added that the K-P Assembly passed a bill for the regularisation of lecturers and had asked the government to regulate 264 lecturers in the region. But the government ignored the teachers in Fata, he said.

Moreover, he added, the services of 97 ad-hoc lecturers have been terminated, whose re-adjustment order were issued by the government. He demanded the K-P governor to regulate all the ad-hoc lecturers and re-hire the terminated ones on a permanent basis.

Fazl-e-Raziq, a teacher at Eeka Ghund Degree College in Mohmand Agency, said, “My service has been terminated several times and without readjustment in another college, I cannot see any job security.”

Separately, lecturers hired from the K-P region on an ad-hoc basis have been protesting for regularisation for the past week now.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 29^th, 2013.