Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Thousands of daily wage employees of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), waiting for their salaries for over months, were compelled to boycott the classes and come on the roads to protest and press for their demands.

There are over 2000 teaching and non-teaching staff members serving in various educational institutions of the FDE across the capital. A large number of them gathered on Monday in front of the FDE building to press for their demands.

They demanded their salaries which should be tantamount to the contract employees working in the directorate, or till their permanent appointment they should be paid equal to the College Teaching Interns (CTI) of Punjab and they (protesters) also demanded for the payment of their pending salaries. The Punjab government is paying Rs 30000 per month to each CTI teacher serving in this respect.

The FDE employees, had earlier also staged many protests to press for their demands. But their issue still lingered. According to a protesting teacher, all aggrieved staff members boycotted the classes in their respective institutions and they will continue this till the acceptance of their demands.

Asma Safdar, a lecturer at the Islamabad Model College for Girls (IMCG) I-10 told Daily Times that the high-ups in the government should take pity over the wretched employees of the FDE.

She said the government had ample budget for their own affairs but it was very shocking that they did not care about teachers who were really the builders of the nations. Safdar said that the Prime Minister’s daughter, Maryam Nawaz, who was very keenly overseeing the educational matters in the capital was paying no heed toward their plight, adding that she (Maryam) had spent Rs 1 billion just on the washroom of her house.

During the protest, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader, Asad Umber, visited the site and he, with a five-member protesting delegation left to met with the Capital Administration and Development (CADD) Minister, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry for negotiations.

In the result of the long hours of meeting between the minister and the delegation, according to lecturer Raza Khalid, the minister agreed with one demand: that of the payment of pending salaries. “I could arrange the funds from any head of the CA&DD budget and you would be paid just your pending salaries. Except this I cannot do any more”, Khalid quoted Chaudhry as saying.

Raza claimed that they would hold a mega protest on Friday (October 21) and they would boycott the classes till the acceptance of their complete demands. He added that the daily wages currently, were being paid even to a sweeper and a peon whose qualification is two times less than a lecturer.

Earlier, this issue was also taken up in the standing committees and various courts. Recently a Senate Standing Committee on the Cabinet Secretariat also expressed its strong displeasure over this matter.

Instead of regularising the daily wages staff, the CA&DD and the FDE were going to make fresh appointments against the vacant posts as an advertisement regarding non-teaching staff appeared in the press that was challenged in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) wherein the IHC forbid the FDE from fresh recruitment.

Despite the court’s stay orders, the FDE once again published the advertisement in the press to seek applications for non-teaching staff. The said advertisement against vacant posts was once again challenged in the same court last week.

The intention of fresh appointments was also criticised by the said committee’s participants. They were of the view that the authorities could not make a discrimination with daily wage teachers by appointing new teachers as they were serving for the last eight to 10 years on the same posts.

The recently appointed Secretary CA&DD, Nargis Ghalo and Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, could not be reached to have their version over the issue. However, Chaudhry’s staff officer, Sadaqat Husain, confirmed the meeting but refused to disclose and comment over the meeting’s consequences.