Teachers of community schools seek salaries

PESHAWAR: The office-bearers of the All Basic Education Community Schools (BECS) Teachers Association of the merged area and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have asked the government to release their salaries pending for the last 27 months.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, the teachers of the BECS teachers warned of closing the schools if their pending salaries were not released forthwith.They said that secretary education and managing directors of both the foundations would be responsible for the closure of schools.

The association vice-president Irshad Ali and general secretary Niamatullah Khan along with other office-bearers said that these basic education community schools had been imparting education to children for the last 25 years.

They said that these schools were handed over to the province after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, adding that the schools in the merged areas were being run by the Merged Area Education Foundation and those in the rest of the province were managed by Elementary and Secondary Education Foundation.

They said that some teachers of the merged areas were given salaries for seven months at the rate of Rs21000 per month which is violation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government minimum wage.

The speakers said that 600 teachers of the merged areas and 1400 teachers of other districts were facing difficulties to support their families. They also claimed that all the projects employees in merged districts were regularized but the teachers of foundation were yet to be regularized.The teachers also appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of the situation and provide justice to them.