Failure to pay up

Failure to make timely payments for anything ranging from the national electricity bill to the gardener and the domestic staff is a national disease. Public servants are expected to do their jobs unpaid, sometimes for months together, and the teachers of Rawalpindi are now added to the list of The Great Unpaid. The failure to pay affects teachers who were engaged by the Rawalpindi Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (RBISE) to mark answer sheets last year. This is no small job. Each teacher may mark 1,200 to 1,500 sheets, but the RBISE only pays them for 600 — when it does eventually pay. About 1,000 teachers in Rawalpindi are affected and up to 20,000 in the other eight boards in the rest of the province have also be waiting for many months. Some teachers have been waiting to be paid for work they did in 2011.

The boards make millions of rupees from the fees paid by students and there is no shortage of money to pay the teachers their due, but it is greed that pushes them into beggary. The greed of those who deposit large sums in banks where they earn considerable amounts of interest, which is then pocketed by assorted corrupt officials. When challenged about the failure to pay, the RBISE spokesman first said that the board disburses payment in a timely manner, then he disputed the number of teachers and then said he would look into the matter. Teachers are exploited across the land. They do duty during local and national elections, while some are supporting the anti-polio drive and risking their lives to do so. It is small wonder that they are demoralised and demotivated if one of their main sources of income is denied to them. ‘Looking into the matter’ is not the result the teachers are looking for and the RBISE needs to wake up to the reality that teachers are a valuable resource whom they can ill-afford to alienate. Pay up, RBISE.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2014.

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