Opposition walks out of KP Assembly to protest proposed education reforms bill

PESHAWAR: The opposition in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly staged a walkout on Tuesday in protest the proposed education reforms bill and to express solidarity with the teachers who are on strike.

The opposition member Munawar Khan of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F), while taking the floor, criticised the government for its policies.

He said thousands of college and school teachers were on roads as the government wanted to snatch their rights. He said all the opposition members were with the teachers in their struggle for genuine rights.

Parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha, said it was a question mark on the governance as teachers from elementary and secondary education as well as college lecturers and professors were on strike but no minister was present to inform the assembly about the situation.

He said the government should listen to the grievances of teachers and have them addressed. “The opposition would not allow the government to impose black law on the teachers,” he said, while assuring support to the teaching community.

The Awami National Party (ANP) parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak said thousands of teachers had been forced to come on roads due to the wrong policies of the rulers.

He said though the treasury benches wanted to keep the proposed education bill secret till it was tabled in the assembly and get it adopted it in a hurry without discussion, it was leaked and posted on the social media.

The draft bill, he said, proposed teachers recruitment on probation basis and termination of the Education Department employees without any notice.

Sardar Hussain Babak said the KP setup had set a worst example of governance in the province as it destroyed the whole structures of health and education departments.

The government, he said, had failed to control the spread of dengue virus and fever caused by it that had claimed several lives and left thousands affected and hospitalized so far.

The ANP legislator said a team of experts reached Peshawar from Punjab to examine and treat dengue patients while the Health Department of the KP government and local administration did nothing for the people.

He also welcomed the members of Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) to the opposition fold and said with their experience the opposition would play a more affective role in the House.

Nighat Orakzai of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Raja Faisal Zaman of the PML-N and Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli of the QWP lashed out at the government for its failure to resolve the problems.

They said the government was bent upon depriving the people of their genuine rights. The opposition members said the government had failed on all fronts and was now trying to deprive the Pakhtun children of education by privatising educational institutions.

The lawmakers said the opposition would support the genuine cause of teachers and would not allow any legislation depriving architects of the nation of their rights. They said relevant ministers should have taken all the stakeholders into confidence before framing the laws.

Assembly Deputy Speaker Dr Mehr Taj Roghani, who presided over the session, gave the floor to Fazle Elahi of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf which led to a rumpus and opposition’s walkout from the House.

The ruling party MPA from rural Peshawar tried to defend the government, saying he wanted to hold talks with the teachers who were protesting outside the assembly, but they had no proper agenda and charter of demands. He alleged the striking teachers were playing into the hands of opposition political parties.

When the heated discussion was going on inside the assembly, school teachers and college lecturers from the entire province were staging a protest in front of the assembly against the proposed education reforms bill.

The speaker had to adjourn the session when Nighat Orakzai pointed out the lack of quorum. Earlier, two bills, The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Control of Narcotic Substances Bill, 2017 and KP Education Foundation (Amendment) Bill, 2017, were moved in the House.