Daily Times

LAHORE: Hired for filling the gap of full time teachers, College Teaching Interns (CTI) are working unpaid for the last five months, Daily Times learnt on Sunday.

A number of CTIs, who are fresh graduates, is passing through a severe financial crunch due to non-payment of salaries.

In September 2016, the Punjab Higher Education Department decided to hire fresh graduates on monthly stipend of Rs 30,000 to overcome the shortage of lecturers and teachers at the public sector colleges in the province.

In a recent development regarding the provision of remuneration to the CTIs, the HEC section officer (Budget and Finance) wrote a letter to the Director Public Instructions (DPI) informing him the CTIs hired for the academic session 2016-17 were still waiting for their salaries. The DPI was also requested to provide budget information and other liabilities as per the prescribed format.

Loads of CTIs have demanded Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to ensure payment of their monthly stipends as promised. They said that they were serving the nation by teaching future builders but non-payment of their salaries had brought down their motivation.

A trainee teacher, requesting anonymity, told Daily times that he was hired by a college soon after he completed his graduation and was expecting that he would get Rs 30,000 monthly, which according to him was sufficient to run his monthly expenses. “But now I am getting money from my parents because I have not been paid for the last five months,” he said and asked how can one expect from a person to work for the whole day without getting a single penny.

A female trainee teacher, who is also a student of MPhil, said she was spending around Rs 20,000 per month for her monthly expenses which were being borne by her parents. “If the government or the HED was unable to pay us then why did they hire us,” she questioned. Given the current scenario, she added said it would be better for her to stay at home rather than spending whole day in college working without money.