Community schoolteachers demand 4-month pending salary

PESHAWAR: Teachers of community schools set up by the previous provincial government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) have said they have not been paid salaries since January. Speaking to The News, a teacher wishing anonymity, said she along with her two other colleagues teach students at a community school but do not get salaries, which is creating problems for them.

Another teacher said the cost of the living had increased owing to the rising inflation while they would get Rs20,000 a month. “But even this meagre salary has not been released for months,” she said. The government has set up primary level Government Community Schools to promote literacy rate and inculcate in people a sense of ownership of these schools as well.

“I am satisfied with the performance of these community schools because the idea behind their establishment was to make the people own these schools,” said Motasim Billah, Managing Director of Elementary and Secondary Education Foundation. About the issue of salaries, he said the main reason behind the delay in the release of the salaries was a centralised system of payment. “Now our Board of Directors has approved to decentralize the system, under which each district would pay the schools located in its limits. The pending salaries will be released soon,” he assured and pointed out that there were 2,190 community schools across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Project launched to end zinc & iron deficiency

Khyber Medical University (KMU has launched BiZiFED Project in collaboration with various international and national partners to eliminate zinc and iron deficiency in the country. The project is aimed at investigating traditional crop breeding techniques coupled with the application of nutrient-rich fertiliser to enrich wheat with essential nutrients such as zinc and iron, known as “bio-fortification”, said a press release. The outcomes of this research will provide valuable evidence for policymakers to guide decisions on the scaling up of bio-fortification on a national level. BiZiFED is an interdisciplinary and collaborative project, comprising international experts in agriculture and food systems, human nutrition and social sciences from Pakistan and the UK from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and collaborative partners Khyber Medical University (KMU), Abaseen Foundation, Fauji Fertilizer Company (FFC), University of Nottingham (UoN), London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), King’s College London (KCL), and the British Geological Survey (BGS).