Strings attached: For female teachers, promotions come at a price

SWAT:

After the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government bundled promotions of senior teachers to grades 14 and 15 with wide-scale transfers, female lecturers in Swat refused both, preferring to stay put.

Zeb Jehan, a grade 12 employee, lives in Saidu Sharif and teaches at Government Primary School Gul Kada. She has been transferred to a primary school in Danai, Shalpin village, Khwazakhela tehsil. However, Jehan turned down the promotion and refused to go there.

“It isn’t possible for me to commute to the new school – it’s very far and located in a very hilly area. It would require three hours of travel by vehicle and then three hours on foot,” she said.

“If I take the job, it will take more than six hours one way, so I prefer to work in my present school. It is our right to be promoted, but the government has conditioned it with a transfer, which is not justifiable.”



Many teachers complained they were transferred to outlying areas with no arrangements for accommodation, making daily commute a near impossibility.

“I have been transferred from Gul Kada to Atlai Khwaza Khela, which is a five-hour trek one way; travelling 10 hours a day is just not possible,” said Rabia, a primary school teacher promoted to grade 15, but posted to a mountainous outpost which used to be a militant stronghold.

“It’s not a good place to stay for a woman – alone in the mountains. That’s why I rejected this ‘conditional’ promotion; there is no good in it for me,” added the disappointed teacher.

Many such teachers condemned the K-P government’s policies. They complained their promotions were withheld for a long time and eventually came, but with unacceptable strings attached – transfers to far-flung areas.

According to the district education office, 587 female teachers have been transferred after being promoted.

District Education Officer Dilshad Begum maintained all transfers were made for the betterment of the education system.

“Headmistresses are needed in every primary school in Swat – senior teachers have been promoted to head these schools. As a majority of them reside in the city and have become used to teaching in one place, they find it hard to make the switch,” said Dilshad. She added if they refuse to go, junior instructors will automatically be promoted in their stead.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2013.