Delaying tactics: SAP teachers without salary for 5 months

G-B teachers are fuming over government apathy, threaten strike.

ISLAMABAD: Over 1,400 teachers working under National Education Foundation (NEF) in Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) have been deprived of their salaries for the last five months due to the finance division’s refusal to release funds.

The NEF took over 1,100 Social Action Programme (SAP) schools in September 2009 along with 300 plus Basic Education Community Schools (BECS), all of which are paying the price for the government’s nonchalant attitude towards releasing funds.

The teachers here also get far lower salaries than the minimum wage of Rs7,000 fixed by the government in spite of having served 10 to 15 years with these schools.

There are 39,928 students currently studying in the SAP schools in addition to the 13,256 students in the BECS schools whose careers are at stake as unpaid teachers seem to have taken a page out of the finance department’s book in their approach to work.

SAP was launched in 1993 and the schools provide education to students from grades one through five in all districts of G-B.

Sadly, teachers are still fighting for their basic rights and successive governments denied them permanent employee status.

NEF official Saadia Awan said they requested the finance division to release funds at the earliest for paying five months of teachers’ salaries, adding that NEF had paid the pending dues of SAP teachers from its own resources following
the change in administration last year. She said that NEF pays Rs4,000 to each matriculate teacher, Rs5,000 to intermediate teachers and Rs5,500 to graduate and post graduate teachers per month.

Officials said that NEF needs Rs5.5 million per month for paying salaries. She said that NEF provides books and other required
material free of cost for students.

Sources said that NEF has demanded the releasing
Rs800 million for executing different projects, but the finance division has not released funds due to the financial crunch.

Talking to The Express Tribune from Ghizer District in Gilgit-Baltistan, a teacher on the condition of anonymity said that they have not received salaries for the last six months.

He claimed that the government consistently treated them with this apathetic attitude as far as releasing their salaries are concerned.

The teacher said that they are planning to protest against the government when schools re-open following the winter break.

He lamented that he has been teaching in an SAP school for the last ten years, yet neither was his salary increased nor was he given a promotion or given permanent status. The teacher further said that he never remembers being paid on time.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2011.