Daily Times

Morale is down among overworked teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who have not been paid their salaries for the last five months. They argue that the government’s lack of commitment to its teachers will ultimately hurt the 43,000 students they are responsible for educating. The government initiated its second shift schooling program in an attempt to ease the burden on schools that otherwise become overcrowded during the day. It is currently being implemented in 1,445 schools scattered across 27 districts in the province.

Many of these schools are located in mountainous areas that cannot be accessed through public transport. Teachers have been forced to go to extraordinary heights just to get to the classroom. However, they have not been compensated fairly for their labour. They even held a meeting with the Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education to negotiate the terms of their pay, but this did not amount to much. The implications of this are serious: many exasperated teachers have threatened to quit their jobs if they do not get paid.

Interestingly, KP is the only province whose budgetary allocation for schools falls in line with UNESCO guidelines, a whopping 20 per cent of its annual budget. So why aren’t its teachers being paid what they are entitled to? This isn’t the first time that KP has come under fire for withholding pay from its teachers. In 2016, 3,500 teachers employed at grammar schools in the province went on strike when the government refused to pay them, prompting hundreds of students to drop out as their teachers were busy fighting for their rights and did not have the energy to devote time to the classroom. The KP government refused to respond appropriately to their concerns and expressed its intention to hire a new set of teachers as opposed to making amends with its current staff.

Teachers are hardly ever consulted when education policy is formulated even though they have far more perspective on the day-to-day issues their students struggle with. Currently, Pakistan offers its teachers no opportunities to engage with policy more actively. Without this, they lack effective channels of communication with higher-ups who could make their lives easier. Teachers cannot be reasonably expected to work long hours in an environment, which does not respect their boundaries. The KP government must offer financial incentives to its teachers if it cares at all about the well-being of the students it has purported to spend so much on. *