Teachers set deadline for promotion, service structure

PESHAWAR: Secondary School Teachers (SST) have set January 1 deadline for the government for acceptance of their demand for promotion and service structure in line with Peshawar High Court orders and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly resolution or else they would stage a sit-in outside the provincial legislature on January 4.

Zulfiqar Ahmad, general secretary, SST Association, told The News the government had been neglecting their demand for years. Some 20,000 teachers have been serving as SST and want upgrading and service structure, but the government has turned a deaf ear to the genuine demand, he said.

Finance secretary of the association, Jamshed Khan Mohmand, said the teachers had been fed up with the cold shoulder response by the government despite its own resolution passed by the KP Assembly in 2015 and high court orders.

He said the teachers had decided to take to the streets if the government failed to meet the demand. The office-bearer said the SST teachers had been serving in the cadre since 1991 and had failed to get promoted to BS 17 from BS 16.

On the other hand, the primary school teachers, senior teachers, theology teachers, Arabic teachers, drawing masters and others have got formal service structure and got promoted from BS 7 to 15 during this period, he explained.

The teachers’ body representative said in other provinces, the SST teachers had been given promotion and service structure and they could be promoted up to BPS 19 there. But in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, these teachers are deprived of rights, he lamented.

He urged the government to look into their genuine demand and resolve the issue forthwith. In case of a protest, he warned, not only the government would get into an embarrassing situation but also the time and studies of the students would be affected.