Teachers on deputation urge Education Minister to fulfill his promise of one-time absorption
Islamabad
A three-member committee constituted by the Ministry of Education last month on July 29, to submit recommendations regarding absorption of teachers on deputation in Islamabad’s schools has failed to address the issue and submitted vague recommendations in its report to the ministry.
According to the well-placed sources in the Federal Ministry of Education & Professional Training, despite Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood’s repeated statements and assurances that teachers on deputation would be absorbed against vacant posts in Islamabad’s schools, the committee in its report did not even touch the subject (of absorption), rather gave a proposal to extend the deputation period from five years to eight years.
Those who have completed a five-year deputation period but are still to complete eight years should be asked to furnish the No Objection Certificate (NOC) and allowed to work till then, the report says.
All those who have completed eight years should repatriate with immediate effect, it concludes.
There are around 300 teachers, mostly lady teachers, from grade-9 to grade-14 working in various schools of Islamabad and though in the past around 50 teachers were absorbed by the FDE, no progress has been made on the cases of the rest of the teachers on deputation.
Interestingly, some of the these teachers were asked by the FDE in the past to get permanent NOC from their parent departments and now in case these teachers are repatriated from Islamabad, their parent department would not accept them.
While talking to Lead Pakistan, teachers on deputation expressed their concerns that again they were being asked to dislocate from Islamabad. We were assured by Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood, Minister for Defence Pervez Khattak, Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan and Minister for Interior Sheikh Rashid Ahmed during our protests on D-Chowk that we would be taken by the FDE as schools under FDE were already short of staff.
“Now submitting such a bizarre report that has not even touched the subject of permanent absorption is like rubbing salt in our wounds,” said a lady teacher from Gilgit Baltistan (GB) working in an Islamabad school on deputation.
These teachers are not only from GB, they are from all parts of the country, Balochistan, Sindh, Punjab and KP and they have been working in Islamabad schools under wedlock policy for years only to live with their husbands and to raise and educate their children. They have even foregone their seniority for the sake of living together with their family.
The wedlock policy allows absorption of these teachers under a 10pc yearly quota. “Unfortunately, the 10pc yearly quota has not been implemented in the past several years or all of us would have been absorbed,” said another teacher.
We are hopeful that the Minister for Education will not take any decision on a report that has recommendations contrary to law and rule and as per his earlier commitment would decide to give one-time absorption to all deputation teachers, said the teacher.
