ISLAMABAD: As many as 1,700 daily-wage employees of Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), after a wait of several years, have now started looking towards the Federal Education Ministry for help. The incumbent government has devolved the Ministry of Capital Administration of Development Division (CADD) into the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training. The FDE is one of the institutions working under CADD, supervising 423 educational institutions including 20 model colleges. The issue of the regularisation of around 1,750 daily wage employees lingered since the past many years. The issue has also been taken up in different courts, as well as parliamentary standing committees. After the defunct of CADD, the employees now begin looking towards a new ministry under the management of new heads. Initially, there were around 2,250 teaching and non teaching daily wagers working in different schools and colleges of the FDE. Afterwards, some of them quit their jobs when they felt disappointment regarding their insecure future. According to the available information, daily-wage staffers were hired mostly by FDE authorities on need basis. Although no prescribed scrutiny system was followed at the time of their appointment, FDE officials were of the opinion that chronic issues should be resolved on priority basis as a majority of the staffers are now are elderly and would not able to find jobs in any other institutions. This bunch of 1,750 staffers claimed that around 500 of the teachers among them had been issued appointment letters on the directives of a former cabinet committee which regularised the services of thousands of daily-wage and contractual employees in various departments during the tenure of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government. In 2011, the PPP government formulated a committee under the chairmanship of Syed Khurshid Shah for regularisation of contractual employees which regularised thousands of contractual employees in various federal government departments. The CADD Ministry also regularised hundreds of employees in the light of Khurshid Shah’s committee recommendations at Polyclinic, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences and other allied departments. Besides, in two different notifications submitted on December 12 and December 22 last year, the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training also confirmed the regularisation of 63 employees in its allied departments when the court directed for this under Shah’s committee findings. Furthermore, after coming into power in 2013, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government regularised over 11,000 employees of various cadres working in different federal entities. The daily wage staffers of the FDE had also staged many strikes to press the authorities for their overwhelming demands. During the tenure of the previous government, leaders of different political parties embraced them for taking up the issue with the government. The leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), especially Asad Umar who was also the Member of National Assembly at that time, attended almost each protest and extended full support to them. However, daily wage teachers said Asad Umar seems less bothered as he did not hold a single meeting with the authorities concerned to review this issue. Moreover, in June, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) ordered for regularisation of all federal government contractual employees, including those of the CADD and directed the authorities concerned to issue posting orders in their respective departments within a period of 90 days. In a 72-page judgement of an IHC divisional bench comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kiyani and Justice Amir Farooq, the court directed that “all employees, who have been regularised by the government of Pakistan through Cabinet Committee, who have not been given joining due to the restrictions imposed by the government and they are only waiting for their posting orders, the concerned ministries and divisions are directed to issue their posting orders within a period of 90 days subject to fulfilment of other codal formalities”. However, the court said, their appointments would be considered permanent from the issuance of notification or joining orders. The court maintained that “employees, who are already working in different ministries, divisions and other departments whose services have been regularised, they should not be disturbed as their cases fall within the ambit of the past and closed transaction, subject to conditions that they were appointed in accordance with law in a transparent manner”. The decision, however, has been challenged in the Supreme Court by the federal government. The government pays Rs 1,400 per month to each daily wager which equals to Rs 350 per day. The officials said that it is quite an insult to “nation builders” as they are being paid even less than a labourer. Published in Daily Times, September 28th 2018.