Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The government has spent billions of rupees on educational reforms. However, important legislation regarding upgrade of hundreds of teachers remains in the limbo despite the passage of six years.

According to documents available with Daily Times, in 2011, the then prime minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani directed to the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) and the Establishment Division (ED) to re-designate Trained Graduate Teachers (TGTs) – pay scale BPS-16 – working in the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) to Secondary School Teachers (SSTs) in BPS 17. The prime minister also directed a one-time expansion of the cadre’s faculty members.

The FDE is an attached entity of CADD that oversees 422 educational institutions in the capital. Thousands of teachers are serving in these institutions.

After re-designation of TGTs as SSTs, it was mandatory to devise a service structure for the new post. However, neither CADD, nor the Establishment Division has given any priority to the issue.

The documents revealed that as many as 1,800 TGTs, including 600 male and 1,200 female teachers, were promoted. Despite the passage of over six years, service structure rules of these teachers have not been finalised.

A senior official in the FDE said that these teachers were frustrated.

“Many of them are at the end of their service. They fear they will retire in the same grade. After promotion to the post of SSTs, dozens of teachers have retired without getting any benefit of the re-designation,” he said.

Moreover, he added, after their retirement, the posts of a large number of SSTs were lying vacant in the FDE institutions. “The Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) will not be able to hire anyone on this slot until the FDE does not provide it a comprehensive proposal with defined rules for these posts,” he said.

“Around 267 of these SSTs will retire this year,” the official said.

An official in the CADD said that last year, the FDE had prepared an initial draft regarding addition and amendments to the relevant rules of the said cadre of teachers and forwarded it to the ministry. “Subsequently, the CADD forwarded it to ED for final approval. However, nothing has been done so far,” he said.

He further said that the rules should have been amended before the posts were re-designated.

Interestingly, the SSTs are more in number as compared to other teaching cadres such as Physical Training Instructors (PTIs), Metric Trained Teachers (MTTs), lecturers, associate professors, assistant professors, and professors. At most of the FDE institutions, the sanctioned posts are of SSTs.

According to sources in the CADD, the ministry had also sent a draft to ED for approval earlier this year. “Afterwards, the draft should have been part of the legislation. However, there has been no progress on this issue,” the official said. FDE Director General Hasnat Qureshi and Capital Administration and Development Division Secretary Nargis Ghaloo remained unavailable for comments despite repeated requests by Daily Times.

Published in Daily Times, August 20^th 2017.