Moalims

KARACHI: Shamshad Ali, who was appointed as a grade-nine teacher at a school in Urdu Bazaar, has been waiting for her salary since 2012.

Shamshad was joined by more than 50 other teachers outside Karachi Press Club on Monday to protest against the education secretary Fazlullah Pechuho, education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro and chief minister Qaim Ali Shah for not resolving their salary issues since the last three and half years. The protest was also supported by Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi leaders.

“I was appointed after completing the proper criteria of appointments when Pir Mazharul Haq was education minister and I performed my duty regularly,” said Shamshad, adding that salary issue has made it difficult for her to make ends meet especially with a two-year-old son.

Teachers in Larkana, Naushero Feroze, Nawabshah and Khairpur have received their salaries, while teachers in Karachi continue to face problems, said a teachers’ association Karachi representative, Sarfaraz Ali, who is grade-14 Sindhi language teacher in a school at New Karachi town. “The issue should be treated equally in all the cities.”

Supporting the protest, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) leader Khurram Sher Zaman promised that he will take up the salary matter to the assembly floor and resolve the issue of teachers.

“If they are fake appointees than the minister and secretaries who appointed them should be arrested and punished, and not the teachers who performed their duties regularly,” the PTI leader added.

If these teachers were hired through fake appointments then the education department should take their appointment test again, said Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman. The teachers who pass their tests should be paid their pending salaries and their jobs be restored, he said. “Those who do not pass the tests should be paid for the time they have served the schools and education department,” he added.

Rehman also demanded that action be taken against the authorities who were responsible for hiring teacher through fake appointments and not make the teachers suffer.

Teachers’ association Karachi chairperson Zaheer Ahmed Baloch claimed that all the teachers are ready to take the re-test. He also said that the committee formed to look into fake appointees has scrutinised their appointments but still the salaries of teachers in Karachi have not been released.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31st, 2016.