Police use tear gas to disperse protest of teachers

PESHAWAR: The use of baton and tear gas was the only effective option used against protesting teachers and to get the roads cleared as the provincial metropolis presented the scene of a battle field once again on Thursday.

The Secondary School Teachers had staged a protest sit-in for the last three days to press the caretaker government to give them up-gradation from BPS 16 to BPS 17 in accordance with the announcement made for the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government on the final day of their rule.

The PTI government had assured the teachers to implement the decision in July with a financial impact of Rs28 billion. However, the caretaker government seems not to be in a position to implement the hollowest announcement made by the previous government.

Also, there is general concern against the performance of the government teachers who only remain active on streets for getting more and more perks without taking any care of their performance in schools.

These teachers are reportedly much higher qualified and paid than those teaching in private schools but their performance is zero when it comes to promotion of quality education.

The most common anecdote is that they don’t even trust themselves when it comes to the education of their own children as they would never admit their own kids in the schools where they teach. A former provincial government had even made a policy for the teachers to admit their own children in government schools, but that policy could never be implemented due to the resistance of these teachers.

Their recent protest had made the lives of the people of the provincial metropolis miserable. On day one of their protest, they staged a sit-in at Suri Pull, the main intersection of traffic in the provincial capital causing the worst traffic jam.

On day two, they were restricted to the Government Higher Secondary School No 1. But on Thursday when they tried to come out to the main GT Road once again, they found a heavy police contingent equipped with riot shields, batons and tear-gas guns waiting for them.