Teachers in no mood to celebrate

Teachers unions will mark World Teachers Day today Teachers’ Grievances Day.

LAHORE: Teachers unions have announced that they will mark World Teachers Day today (Tuesday) as Faryad Teachers Day, or Teachers’ Grievances Day, to voice their concerns about how educationists are treated in Pakistan.

Teachers’ organisations will hold rallies and seminars across the province to highlight their demands, participants decided at a meeting of the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA).

They criticised the chief minister, saying he had no vision for education and had left inexperienced bureaucrats in charge of education. They also demanded the resignation of the secretary of the Higher Education Department for making derogatory comments about teachers.

Teachers have been demanding a 50 per cent pay increase, in line with raises announced for government employees. They have also protested recent cuts in the higher education budget.

The meeting was presided over by Professor Zahid Ahmad Sheikh, president of the PPLA’s Joint Action Committee, and attended by Hafiz Abdul Nasir, president of the Punjab Government Schools Senior Staff Association, Rana Sultan Mehmood Akhtar, president of the Punjab SES Teachers Association, Ghulam Mahyddin, president of the Punjab Teachers Union, and Zaheeruddin, chairman of the Mutahidda Taleba Mahaz, among others.

Disaffected

There is widespread disaffection amongst the city’s teachers about how they are treated by the government and their employers, as well as by general society. They expect little to change on World Teachers Day.

“Who cares about Teachers Day here?” said Tanveer Hussain, a teacher at Central Model Public School in Muslim Town. “This day is for countries where teachers get their rights. We don’t even know what it is.”

Izza Zahoor, a teacher at Lahore Grammar School, said all schools should celebrate the day with special attention. “After all we should be made to feel special too. We deserve it, at least once a year.”

“Teacher’s Day should be celebrated like Mother’s Day,” said Maria Naseem, who worked as a teacher in City School for more than four years before changing jobs. “Teachers can be thanked in simple ways in return for how they touch children’s lives in special ways.”

Rashida Anwer, a teacher at Lahore College of Arts and Sciences, said celebrating the day was good not just for teachers, but students too. “I make sure it’s a part of my lesson plans for this week, every year. I believe learning to thank and recognise the efforts of important people in your life is an important lesson,” she said.

“A good teacher is a blessing and we should acknowledge as much through such gestures,” said Sadaf Munib, who helped her five-year-old daughter make a special card for her teacher. She added that her daughter had developed a special bond with her teacher just 20 days into her school life.

But not all students are so lucky.

Sadiq Saifullah, who taught for several years at a public school in Dera Ghazi Khan, said there was a chronic problem of absent teachers at many government institutions.

“Back in my village, the teachers used to come to school on pay day only,” said Saifullah, who now teaches at a school in Samanabad. “Those who came once in a while handed the kids their to-do lists which included things like changing their motorbike tyres, bringing sugar from the market and giving their buffalo a bath.”

Additional Reporting by Ayesha Jehangir

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2010.