Parents, MPs join protesting teachers in Islamabad

Islamabad: As the daily-wage employees of Islamabad's public sector educational institutions continued with their strike and agitation, parents of some students as well as parliamentarians on Wednesday joined them to show solidarity in the struggle for payment of salary and service regularisation.

After boycotting duty, the daily wagers both academic and non-academic staff members came outside the National Press Club and protested there before marching on the nearby major road.

They said they had earlier ended their protest on the assurance of the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) minister but that turned out to be false afterwards and therefore, this time around, they won't resume duty until their demands were met.

The protesters said they'd not been paid salary for the last six months, while the promise of service regularisation had also not been fulfilled by the authorities. They also flayed the CADD and Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) for announcing recruitment of new teachers for Islamabad's schools and said it was injustice to them as they'd been serving as teachers for many years but the authorities didn't give them permanent jobs. The protesters said their strike had paralysed educational institutions to the misery of students, whose annual examinations were at hand.

They demanded the prime minister and Supreme Court chief justice to take notice of their protest to order early corrective measures. MQM Senator Muhammad Ali Khan Saif also joined protesters and assured them of his and his party's support inside and outside parliament for their struggle for service regularisation and salary payment. Parents of such schoolchildren also showed up saying the daily-wage teachers deserve to be regularised after service of many years.