School teachers salaries issue

Schoolteachers stage protest,demand increase in their salaries
Rawalpindi, Jan 26: Teachers of Punjab public sector schools have expressed concern over non-increase in their emoluments despite repeated assurances by the provincial government.

They set up a protest camp near the Rawalpindi Press Club. Punjab Teachers Union (Rawalpindi District) President Sagheer Alam led the protest, which was attended, by a large number of teachers, including Anis Ahmed Abbasi, Chaudhry Tasawar Hussain, Malik Zaheer Ahmed, Mohammad Shafiq Bhatti, Raja Nadeem Akhtar, Haroon Rasheed and Tariq Mahmood.

Expressing their views at the protest camp, the union representatives said that prices of items of daily use and other things have shot up, but salaries of teachers have not been increased.

Sagheer Alam said that the representatives had held several meetings with higher officials for increase in their salaries. However the provincial government despite assurances by its functionaries took no positive measure.

He said that the government has increased charges of electricity, gas, petrol, CNG and diesel several times over last six months, but the concerned authorities did not bother to increase the emoluments of teachers. It has become impossible for them to manage their household budgets.

'We can't even afford fares of public transport. There is no option for us apart from launching a protest movement to draw the attention of the government towards the financial crisis being faced by our community,' Sagheer Alam stated.

He urged Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif to take immediate notice of the situation and issue necessary directives with regard to raising emoluments of teachers of the provincial government schools.

He said that the formation of the pay and commission committee was just to hoodwink teachers. 'The report of this committee has been put in cold storage deliberately,' he added.

Post your comments

Primary teachers campaign
Rawalpindi: Primary Elementary Teachers Association District Rawalpindi has launched a campaign to make District Accounts Office Rawalpindi free of corruption. District President of the Association, Mirza Shamsher Ahmed has said that the officials of District Accounts Office raised unnecessary objections on bills of teachers and made impossible for teachers to get their dues.

He said that bribe are being demanded from teachers even for GP Fund and pay slips have not been issued for many months. Mirza Shamsher also demanded the transfer of officials working in District Accounts Office sine long as they are the main source of spreading corruption in the department.

Post your comments

NIP age relaxation for Sindh youth
Islamabad: The Ministry of Youth Affairs here on Monday announced the three-year age relaxation under the National Internship Programme (NIP) for the youth of the rural areas of Sindh.

According to the Ministry of Youth Affairs, candidates whose ages are under 28 years or less on October 30, 2009, can apply for the NIP. It said the aim of the age relaxation is to accommodate more youth from rural Sindh and provide an opportunity of internship to the unemployed graduates of those areas, having 16 years of education from HEC recognised universities and institutions, including external candidates. Students, who have domiciles of Sindh's rural areas, can apply for NIP and they must not have availed the internship opportunity under NIP before.

The duration of the internship would be one year and the stipend would also provide Rs10,000 per month. After the completion of one year, the ministry would provide them experience certificates on the successful completion of their training. Students can apply online at www.nip.gov.pk or by post if they have no facility of Internet. The last date for the submission of applications is March 1, 2010.

Post your comments

Only 66% committed education aid disbursed
Islamabad: The commitment and disbursement gap in the Official Development Assistance (ODA) in Pakistan's education sector is becoming all the more evident in view of the fact that only 66 per cent of the ODA committed is disbursed.

These views were expressed at the launch of a study titled 'A Policy Scan of Official Development Assistance (ODA)' published by the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE). Civil society activists, government officials, media representatives and education experts participated in the event and expressed their views on the issue.

The study shows that the ODA in education sector faces innumerable issues and challenges such as meagre allocation of resources, little focus of multinationals on education, gaps in commitments and actual disbursements, strict aid conditionalities, and lack of implementation and transparency mechanisms.

Highlighting the importance of ODA, Chairman National Standing Committee on Education Abid Sher Ali said it is vital in addressing the missing links in education. 'Our enhanced focus, however, should be on generating and mobilising local resources,' he added.

Talking about the inadequate focus of multinationals on education, researcher of the study and Executive Director Centre for Peace & Development Initiatives (CPDI) Mukhtar Ahmed Ali said the trend is evident from the fact that the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank apportion most of the project aid to infrastructure development. He further mentioned that grants constitute only 19 per cent of ODA and the remaining comes in the form of loans.

Assessing the role of ODA in Pakistan, Advisor to Chief Minister Sindh Dr Kaiser Bengali emphasised that as a rule, loans should only be taken for asset creation and should never be taken for budgetary support. However, he cited education as an exception to this rule, as it is not aimed at asset creation but the overall well-being.

He reiterated the importance of foreign assistance but specified four areas of concerns regarding shortage that of teachers, laboratory equipments/instruments, libraries, and research resources like journals/books and scholarships. He also called for comprehensive planning to control the brain drain.

Mohammad Muntasim Tanvir, Campaign Coordinator Asia South Pacific Association for Basic & Adult Education (ASPBAE) - a network of 200 organisations working in 36 countries - spoke on the ODA trends in Asia. He highlighted the inadequacy of aid and low priority accorded to education in the whole region.

He also underlined the key policy demands from the Asian civil society regarding aid, adding that aid should be transparent, unconditional, consistent and better quality grants (instead of loans). 'The aid should be monitored through strong accountability measures and should be used in a harmonised process for long term and sustainable projects with full participation from civil society in its design, implementation and monitoring.'

Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE) is a network, which by design is a forum for initiating, sharing and exchanging dialogues on different education related issues like policy, governance and financing. It encourages dialogues on issues in education with a view to promote awareness among people and create a critical mass for facilitating a positive change and improving upon the overall education scenario.

Post your comments

GIKI Software contest
Rawalpindi: All Pakistan Software Competition namely Softcom, 2010 will be held from January 29 to 31, at the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (GIKI), Topi, says a press release.

Students of various universities from all over the country will participate in the competition.

The main objectives of this competition are to encourage students to display their professional skills at national level, to share innovative ideas and skill of software engineers and developers, to produce international quality projects, to promote research and development culture in Pakistan and to develop and encourage human resource of the country.

It is worth mentioning here that Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology (GIKI) is one of the most prestigious engineering institutes of Pakistan. The news

Post your comments