FDE schools’ temp to go on strike from Tuesday

Islamabad : The daily-wage employees of Islamabad's schools and colleges, both from model and federal government setups, have decided that they will go on strike and boycott duty from Tuesday (January 9) to pressurise the government for regularisation of their service.

They insist they’ve been working at the public sector educational institutions for many years but the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) is trying to recruit new staff instead of giving them permanent jobs.

The FDE oversees government schools and colleges in the Islamabad Capital Territory.

Ihsan Sikandari of the Young Teachers Association (YTA), which represents the temp, said the teaching and non-teaching staff of schools and colleges of both FG and model setups have decided to boycott duty until they're given their right i.e. service regularisation.

"The YTA had made a struggle for permanent jobs of daily wagers during the last five years but this time around, we will make a fresh struggle for the purpuse along with daily wagers from the model setup and will not resume duty until our services are regularised," he said.

The YTA leader said the FDE schools' daily wagers would begin boycotting duty from January 9 (Tuesday) and would protest outside the National Press Club daily to claim permanent jobs.

He resented that the FDE recently published an advertisement in the national newspapers inviting applications for the recruitment of over 230 elementary teachers both men and women for model schools and colleges, a move, which was an injustice to the daily-wage teachers of these educational institutions totalling around 2,200.

"The planned recruitment is part of the PML-N government’s election stunt to offer jobs to voters in the Islamabad Capital Territory to ensure victory in upcoming general elections. We fear more such recruitment would be carried out ahead of the polls, which were few months away," he alleged. He said the FDE daily-wage teachers won’t allow such tactics to succeed and would go to every extent to claim the due right to permanent jobs after being in service for so many years.