Primary school teachers get a beating at protest

Teachers were protesting against education dept, demand removal of secretary

KARACHI:

The primary school teachers protesting against the education department received a beating from the police on Wednesday, shortly after they moved towards Governor House.

The police manhandled some teachers, fired tear-gas shells and used a water canon to make sure the teachers were unable to enter the high-security area.



These teachers, who were demanding the removal of the education secretary, had travelled to Karachi from various parts of Sindh. Initially they were protesting outside Karachi Press Club but then they started marching towards Chief Minister House.

"Na khapi, na khapi secretary education na khapi [We don't want the education secretary]," shouted one protester. "We will prefer to die but will not accept this secretary," shouted another.

When they neared Governor House, the police tried to stop them. This led to a tussle in which the law enforcers baton-charged some protesters. A few teachers were injured while more than two dozen of them, including Primary Teachers' Association central general secretary Liaquat Deedar, were arrested. However, Deedar suffered a cardiac arrest and was taken to National Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases by the police.



Despite the heavy shelling, the protesting teachers reached CM House where they staged a sit-in. Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah was out of the country but some government officials, led by District South deputy commissioner, reached the spot and negotiated with the teachers. He assured them that a committee will be formed to address their issues but the teachers were not satisfied.

"The committee will comprise the education minister and two other cabinet members," pointed out Intizar Hussain Chhalgri, the convener of the teachers' association. "Many committees have already been formed and we don't trust such committees headed by bureaucrats that don't yield any results."

Chhalgri explained that their main demand is the removal of the education secretary, Fazlullah Pechuho. "He [Pechuho] has stopped the salaries of thousands of teachers calling their appointments fake," he said. Thousands of public school teachers were recently allowed time-scale allowance and given promotions but these benefits were stopped, he added.



Most of the teachers felt that Pechuho's policies were "anti-education" since he appointed district revenue officers to supervise the teachers' activities. "The revenue department is notorious for being the most corrupt in the Sindh government," said a Larkana-based teacher, Ghulam Hussain Abro. "The revenue officials started blackmailing the teachers, forcing them to pay bribes.

According to Abro, the salaries of more than 1,000 teachers have been stopped in Larkana district alone. "Our demand is to verify the credentials of these teachers before taking action against them," he said.

Kamber teachers' association's secretary-general Inamul Haq claimed that a large number of teachers have been appointed by the education secretary despite the ban on appointments. "We demand the audit of education funds especially the budget that was given by the World Bank," he said.

Meanwhile, Sindh Education Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro condemned the fact that the teachers were beaten up and directed the police to release them. "We respect the teaching profession and everyone has a right protest for their demands," he said. "But they [teachers] should have avoided creating a mess in the red zone, which forced the police to resort to tear-gas shelling."

Khuhro added that the genuine demands of the teachers will be met and asked them to visit him at his office. The teachers continued, however, to protest outside CM House until late in the evening.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2015.