Fata district teachers move PHC against polio duty

PESHAWAR: Teachers of government schools in the newly merged tribal and southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have challenged in the Peshawar High Court the additional duty of administering polio drops to children.

The petition was filed by the All Tribal Teachers Association, making Health and Services Department, Education Department, Local Government Department and officials of the polio campaign as parties.

The teachers claimed in the petition that the government was putting the burden of an additional duty of polio vaccination on two teachers of each school in the three-day polio drive in the districts.

They claimed that using teachers for polio vaccination was against the law and the non-availability of teachers was also adversely affecting the students’ education in the government schools.

The association submitted before the bench that assigning the duty of the Health Department to teachers was also against the service rules. It was pointed out that the Education Department stopped salaries and other allowances when the teachers refused to perform the polio duty.The association requested the court to declare the government’s act as void and direct the department concerned to stop assigning this duty to teachers.