Teachers staged a sit-in outside the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday to press the provincial government to accept their demands for regularisation from their appointment dates, pay protection and increments in salaries.
Chanting slogans, they demanded that the government should regularise the teachers as they were promised permanent jobs. They said they wanted someone to come and listen to the protesters.
They said that after Monday’s protest, officials of the School Education and Literacy Department assured the protesting teachers that the process of their regularisation would be expedited, but the process involved many hurdles and several steps.
The summary for the regularisation of teachers was sent to the adviser to CM on law from the law department after the completion of the first step. Now the adviser will move the summary to the chief secretary and finally it will reach the CM office, after which the summary will be presented to the cabinet. This red tapism takes time while bureaucrats are not interested in resolving the problems being faced by the teachers, according to protesters.
The teachers announced that they would celebrate the Eidul Azha at their sit-in camp in front of the Sindh Assembly and would continue the protest until the fulfillment of their demands. Later, some MPAs visited the sit-in camp and assured the protesters that they would raise their voice in the provincial assembly. The MPAs who visited the sit-in camp included Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh, Agha Rafiullah and Mumtaz Chandio.
On Monday, police used batons and water cannon against teachers when they tried to hold a protest in front of the Sindh Assembly, which falls in the red zone. Some of the protesters were also detained by the police. However, after an assurance from a delegation of the School Education and Literacy, the teachers ended protest.
The delegation and teachers agreed that the summary pending with the law department would be sent to the CM after getting it from the chief secretary. After the success of the negotiations, the police released the arrested teachers.
Also, the SELD secretary had assured the teachers that the summary would be moved to the office of the CS, and it would later be forwarded to the CM for the final approval. On this assurance, the teachers announced that they would not hold a protest for a week, during which time the process was expected to be completed
The provincial government had appointed some 3,800 teachers in 2018 through the Sukkur IBA. Those who had cleared the test and interviews had been hired, following which they had joined their duties in 2019 in various districts of the province. The government had promised these teachers that they would be regularised, but then a new batch was hired through the Sukkur IBA after conducting the same test and interviews.
According to the protesting teachers, the old batch of 3,800 teachers is still waiting to be regularised, while the new batch has already been regularised. Therefore, the new batch of teachers who are yet to join their duties will be seniors, while the old batch is still struggling to be regularised.
On January 13, the SELD had moved a summary to the law department, seeking its legal opinion on the regularisation of these teachers. However, the law department on January
24 returned the summary to the SELD after raising a few objections.
Later, the SELD cleared those objections and resent the summary to the law department on May 26. Since then no progress has been made to resolve the issue. This is why, the teachers have been protesting so that they could put pressure on the SELD to move the summary to the CM for approval.
