Daily Times

PESHAWAR: There has been a violation of civil servants rule by appointing 25,000 government school teachers on ad-hoc basis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) for the last three years.

However, the provincial government is not only violating the rules but also constantly denying the regularisation policy in the education sector leaving the future of thousands of teachers in an abyss. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government appointed 25000 teachers through the National Testing Service (NTS) in successive budgets and since then annually extending their jobs contract against the civil service rules. The president of the All Cadres NTS Teacher Association of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Abdul Wakeel, has criticised the ad-hoc based policy of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. He said that it was against civil servant rules of Pakistan to hire BPS-12 to BPS 15 on ad-hoc basis because it was the sole right of the commission to appoint above the BPS 16 on ad-hoc basis. The provincial government on one hand was violating the civil servant rules and on the other hand it had relatively put in great resentment the teachers community by eroding the job security of the teachers appointed under this policy.

The president claimed that the issued had relatively hurt the pedagogical activities of the schools as the teachers were highly concerned about their permanent status which was being denied by the provincial government. The NTS teachers of the government schools are also serving without annual increments for the last three years and they did not have not the facility of transfer or mutual transfer in the province. It is pertinent to mention here that the PTI government is claiming tall induction of 40000 teachers but has failed to address their regularisation issues. A credible source told this scribe that the KP government will again adopt the ad-hoc policy in the education sector and intends to hire more teachers in the upcoming budget. The policy of ad-hoc based induction policy for the cadres of PST, CT and drawing masters positions was first time implemented in the province in the education sector the president added. Without facilitating the teachers at the schools or denying job security the education sector cannot progress Abdul Wakeel added. The representative of the association demanded of the provincial government to stop the exploitation of the teacher’s community and resolve the issue of regularisation of 25000 teachers in the province. However, the officials of the education department declined to comment over the issue and said that the education minister, Muhammad Atif Khan, who is on an official visit to abroad will answer better in this regard.

Hajj counter for women: The Pilgrimage/Hajj Group Organisation and Association of Pakistan (HOPE) demanded a separate counter for women at Jeddah Airport in a meeting on Monday with the Minister for ReligiousAffairs in Peshawar.

During the meeting the Chairman HOPE streamed separate arrangements for male and female Hajj Pilgrims.

The delegation of HOPE met with the Deputy Minister of Hajj in Saudi Arabia,Dr Mohammad Nasir and discussed the arrangements regarding Hajj Policy 2017 and presented their suggestions about the hardships. The delegation was led by Hajji Sanaullah along with Chairman HOPE Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Masood Shinwari.