Moalims

LAHORE: On the occasion of the International Day of Teachers, Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) has issued a white paper on pathetic condition of teachers in Punjab and poor condition of educational institutes apart from the mismanagement and corruption that prevails in the Education Department.

According to the white paper issued on Monday, 7,000 primary schools are deprived of electricity, 3,000 from boundary walls, 1,200 from toilets and 700 from clean drinking water while 10,000 posts of teachers in different schools are vacant there for the last seven years.

The white paper was issued to the media after passing it in a meeting of the PAT research cell conducted by PAT Punjab president Bashara Jaspal, secretary Mushtaq Noorani and information secretary Noorullah Sadiqui.

The white paper said that Punjab is the only province where teachers do not have the constitutional right to protest and teachers are deprived of 25 annual holidays. Teachers are being treated like brick-kiln workers.

In last seven years, the teachers in Punjab have come out on the streets eight times to protest for their rights, but the irony of the fact is that instead of being given their rights they were booked in false cases and violence was meted out against them by the police which acts like a watchdog of the Punjab government, the paper said adding that teachers are either transferred to far-flung areas or are forcibly retired.

The paper said that this step of the Punjab government towards the teachers is the main reason behind the low literacy rate in the province and the millennium goal of achieving 100 percent enrolment in schools could not be met, which is the biggest setback for the Shahbaz government.

In every province teachers are provided with official residence and have housing scheme, but in Punjab no such thing exists, it added. It said that a parallel education system has been imposed in Punjab by the interdiction of Danish Schools.

“There is hell of a difference between the pay and privileges being given to teachers of the Danish Schools and the teachers of the rest of the province. This has created a scene of deprivation among the teachers of the province,” the paper read.

It said that Rs 350 million, the amount spent on the renovation of the boundary walls of the residence of the Punjab CM’s Jatti Umra residence, would have been enough to make new boundary walls of over 1,000 schools in the province, which are in a fear of being a target of terrorists.

News Reference