Daily Times

RAWALPINDI: The Education Department Punjab has announced to outsource around 10,000 government schools located across the province, including Rawalpindi Division to private sector.

A decision has been taken, after which the Education Department Punjab made a formal announcement to handover the primary, middle and high School control to private sector.

Secretary Education Punjab has sought a list of all the schools, which should be outsourced in this phase and process will be completed during the ongoing summer vacations.

Various teacher unions have also decided to stage protests against the move.

Teachers Union leaders Rana Liaquat, Shafiq Bholia, Shahid Mubarak, Chaudhry Yaseen have termed the outsourcing government educational institutions is tantamount to undermining the education system.

They viewed that the academic system will be destroyed further and enrollment target set by the administration for the government schools will not be achieved due to ill-conceived policies of PML (N) led government.

Meanwhile, the Education Department Punjab has announced to upgrade the scales of primary and middle class teachers across the province including Rawalpindi Division.

This decision will stand enforced from 1st January 2018.

According to media reports, around Rs 9 billion will be spent on up gradation of scales while 0.3 million teachers are expected to get benefit from the project.

The primary teachers (PST) will be upgraded from scale 9 to 14 while middle teachers (SST) from grade 14 to 15.

Moreover, the decision will not be applicable to SST teachers. Another decision has been taken to hand over around 10000 primary and middle schools to Education Foundation.

Meanwhile, the teachers Union have rejected the upgrading, moreover, primary and middle teachers have expressed happiness over the decision.

Punjab Teachers Union leader Rana Liaquat Shafiq has termed the decision to implement upgrading orders from 1st January unjust and inequitable.

Published in Daily Times, June 29th, 2017.