Teachers protest against non-regularisation

LAHORE:Hundreds of schoolteachers taking out a rally and observing hours-long sit-in here Monday protested against the Punjab government for not regularising the services of over 11,000 Educators and Assistant Education Officers (AEOs).

Male and female schoolteachers from different parts of the province gathered outside the Lahore Press Club and recorded their protest. Later, they marched towards the Punjab Assembly on The Mall.

The teachers, AEOs and representatives of different teacher associations, including Punjab Teachers Union (PTU), Headmasters Association Punjab (HMAP) and others observed a sit-in at Faisal Chowk and strongly protested against, what they termed, indifferent attitude of the School Education Department (SED) Punjab and Schools Minister Dr Murad Raas over the issue of unconditional regularisation of Educators and AEOs across the province. They regretted that despite his promise Dr Murad did not ensure their regularisation despite passage of a couple of months. The call for the protest was given by Secondary School Educators Regularisation Movement, Punjab.

A number of teacher representatives, including Ch Sarfaraz, Rana Liaqat, Kashif Shahzad, Muhammad Imran, Qasim Bukhari and others addressed the sit-in participants and criticised the government for delaying the regularisation of the SED Punjab employees. They observed that the government had regularised the teachers’ services without involving the PPSC in the past but this time it was reluctant which had upset the stakeholders. They added these teachers and AEOs were recruited on merit fulfilling all legal formalities.

A severe traffic mess was observed on the route of the rally, The Mall and many adjacent roads for quite some time. Carrying banners and placards the demonstrators chanted slogans to highlight their demands, including non-involvement of the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) in their regularisation. The protest continued until the filing of this report.