LAHORE: Teachers on Saturday condemned the provincial government for backtracking on its promises to resolve the long-standing issues facing them.
While talking to Daily Times, PTU General Secretary Rana Liaqat said that the government, bureaucracy and the education department had failed to accept several demands of the PTU.
“These demands are only for the welfare of teachers. They have a right to demand steps for their welfare,” he added.
Rana Liaqat said that several other issues such in-service promotion, 1,300 vacant posts of headmasters/principals, punishment on enrolment targets, ban on granting leaves, regularisation of contract teachers, payment of leave encashment and delay in salaries of contract teacher were still pending.
Liaqat said that here was frustration among teachers due to these unresolved issues. “Rather than resolving their problems, the education department and the government are putting pressure on teachers,” he said, adding that women teachers were bearing the brunt of the bad policies of the education department. “Women teachers working in rural areas have to travel long distances only in order to reply to show-cause notices,” he said.
He also noted that for the whole year, the government and bureaucracy had continued to make new experiments, which all eventually failed. “The biggest failure in this regard was the establishment of District Education Authority (DEA). However, the government is still reluctant to do anything to change its flawed policies. The school education sector is heading towards disaster. In the end, both the teachers and students will suffer,” he said.
He also demanded that government should make the Punjab Teachers’ Foundation an active department rather than just changing its name. He added that the government planned teachers’ training at its own. “No one even bothers to include the most important stakeholder in decision making process, which are teachers. Teacher’s training schedule should be designed after consultation with teachers or representatives from teaching community,” he said.
He said that all the teachers in an emergency meeting held in this regard at Government Muslim Model High School Urdu Bazaar had unanimously agreed that a request should be sent to the chief minister, Education Minister Rana Mashood, the chief secretary and Schools Department secretary. “The request would include all the demands as well as issues being faced by the teaching community so that CM is aware of the teachers’ point of view, he said. To a question, Rana Liaqat said that if the government did not take action on its demands, then the teachers would have no other option but to launch a protest campaign in February. “The meeting also announced to support the demands of college lecturers. PTU will participate in the protests held by the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA),” he said.
When asked about the outcome of previous protests, he said that the government had accepted only a few of their demands.
Published in Daily Times, January 1st 2018.