After a 10-day long continued protest, the Basic Education Community School (BECS) teachers on Thursday called off the protest when the concerned authorities assured them that their issues will be resolved on priority basis. A large number of BECS teachers hailing from different areas of the country held a sit-in at D-Chowk for 10 days. The BECS is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training and has 12,000 informal schools across the country, most of which have one teacher for one school. A group of protesting teachers’ representatives was invited over by Education Ministry Secretary Arshad Mirza who gave them written assurance to sort out the issue. “No teacher will be removed arbitrarily and the ministry will expedite payment of dues and BECS teachers will be considered for regularization,” reads a letter issued by the ministry after the meeting. The teachers demanded their regularisation and payment of due salaries of several months. “Even after serving for more than two decades, their services are yet to be regularised. Our per month salary is Rs 8,000 which is half the minimum wage set by federal government,” they complained. They said that it was sheer discrimination that services of some other BECS teachers have been regularised. “We are still waiting for our own rights,” they cried. Despite blockage of main Jinnah Avenue towards Parliament House as part of the sit-in, no one in the authorities paid heed towards the plight of protesting teachers. The teachers remained consistence in the rain as well. A day earlier, the BECS teachers’ issue was brought up in parliament where the education minister told lawmakers that his ministry was taking steps to address the protesters’ demands. On a point of order, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Member of National Assembly Mahnaz Akbar Aziz raised the issue of the protesting teachers, saying that the people who would deliver lectures on top of containers are now talking about the state of Medina, and are not giving the teacher’s protest any attention. In response, a minister confessed that it is true that the BECS teachers have not been paid their salaries and that this is a matter of concern. He claimed that delay in the release of salaries started during PML-N’s government and that BECS is treated as a project which is why teachers have to face a delay in the release of their salaries as the Education Ministry has to prepare a PC-I for the project’s extension. Sources in the ministry revealed that the point of order from MNA Mahnaz Akbar Aziz perturbed the minister due to which he directed the ministry secretary to hold dialogue with the protesters. It is pertinent to mention that the protest started at a time when the federal Education Ministry setup a roadmap for bringing 250 million out of school children into schools and BESC. The National Commission for Human Development will play an important role in running the campaign for bringing out of school children into school. The BESC is considered an important organisation. The educationists said that its issues should be resolved on a priority basis or the government’s drive for out of school children will suffer. Teachers associated with the programme have been faced with inconsistency the last many years, which culminated in them staging the current protest, focused on pushing the government to regularise them. Published in Daily Times, December 14th 2018.