Daily Times

On 14 December, 2017, the Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) which is a representative organisation of college teachers in the province, staged a protest in Lahore to persuade the Punjab government to accept their demands for one-step up-gradation, times-scale promotions and on job professional trainings of the college teachers.

In reality, not only by the Punjab government but also the community has been deprived of their fundamental and legal rights by all of the provincial governments and the federal government of Pakistan where their representative organisations like Balochistan Professors and Lecturers Association (BPLA), Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Professors and Lecturers Association (KPPLAS), and Federal Government college Teachers Association (FGCTA) have been struggling for the similar demands. But the reluctance of the governments to accept the demands of the teaching community is beyond understanding, irrational and discriminatory.

No sane mind can deny the fact that the teachers are the backbone of any society and they deserve to be treated with due respect. Pakistan government’s discriminatory policy to deprive college teachers of their basic and justified rights has caused the frustration and chagrin among the teacher community.

As the nature of job of university, school and college teachers is analogous, therefore college teachers are to be entitled to enjoy all facilities provided to university and school teachers in the country. Tragically, college teachers are promoted after too long period of time in service. This is why most of the college teachers retire in BPS-18 and 19. It takes 15 to 16 years for one step-promotion of lecturer from grade 17 to assistant professor grade 18, which is sheer injustice with the teacher community.

No sane mind can deny the fact that the teachers are the backbone of any society and they deserve to be treated with due respect. Pakistan government’s discriminatory policy to deprive college teachers of their basic rights has caused frustration and chagrin among teachers

In 2006, the then Prime Minister, Shoukat Aziz, had announced the one scale up-gradation formula for teachers of public universities and colleges. Afterward, in November 2010, the former Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gillani, had also announced the up-gradation for teachers of both public universities and colleges. But, unfortunately, the Higher Education commission making injustice with college teachers formulated discriminatory up-gradation policy.

It approved the up-gradation of posts of university teachers only by offering them one grade higher than their existing grades without any condition. According to the one-step up-gradation formula, the university lecturers, assistant professors, associate professors, and professors were given BPS-18, BPS-19, BPS-20 and BPS-21 respectively against the existing BPS-17, BPS-18, BPS-19 and BPS-20, while college teachers were deprived of the right they were to be entitled. It spread the wave of shock among the deprived community.

All of the school teachers and teachers working in the federal government colleges and model colleges have been awarded time scale promotions by all the provincial school education departments and Islamabad capital administration and development division respectively. But college teachers have been deprived of even this fundamental right. Sindh government had given the incentive to high school teachers (HSTs) and junior school teachers (JSTs) in 2010 and to Primary school teachers (PSTs) in 2014. But, ironically, it has also been reluctant to give the right to teachers serving in college education department.

In-service teacher training results in the professional development of teachers and it provides them with opportunity for refresher, dissemination and deepening of knowledge. The training helps teachers build their teaching capacity.

It enhances expertise in their teaching discipline and equips them with a huge understanding of the best practices in teaching methodologies and of use of state of the art pedagogical technologies. Ultimately, it increases the quality and effectiveness of the whole educational system. Despite the fact, in Pakistan, training programmes for college teachers have not been held.

In Sindh, the situation of teacher training programmes is startling because no single training programme for college teachers has been held by the provincial education department. It seems that there is no concept of in-service training of college teacher. This is one of the significant reasons for the lack of quality education and ineffectiveness of college education in Sindh.

The undeniable fact is that there is no importance and sympathy in the eyes of the responsible officials of the education departments for college teachers, who have served and have even spent their whole precious age of life in teaching. It should be made sure that the frustrated teachers could not be expected to teach up to the mark. If we predict them to be involved in elevating quality education, the deep rooted letdowns are desperately needed to be ended by resolving chronic problems of the teaching community, which it is entangled in for long.

The writer is an academic, and can be reached on Twitter @ARShykh

Published in Daily Times, February 17^th 2018.