Teachers appeal to CJP to take up case in SC

Islamabad: The daily-wage teachers have appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take up the case of regularisation of their services in the Supreme Court as the case was witnessing enormous delay due to the scarcity of judges in the Lahore High Court's Rawalpindi Bench.

The case was being heard, earlier, in Islamabad High Court (IHC) but after its abolition by the Supreme Court in its July 31 verdict, it was transferred to the LHC's Rawalpindi bench. The contempt of court case on non-implementation of court orders in 2008 in writ petition 2019/2006 was in its last stages and the teachers were expecting the decision in their favour but the transfer of the case left its fate hanging in the balance.The teachers lamented that as the case has been left in abeyance they have no platform where their demands could be heard thus the officials of the ministry has been given free hand to exploit the teachers.

On the media reports that the summary to regularise the teachers working on daily wages has been forwarded to the prime minister, the teacher remarked, "Such claims by the ministry officials use to appear in the media on and off but practically things have not been changed and we have not been informed officially".

They also appealed to ensure the implementation of Islamabad High Court orders in which the court on April 2, 2008 had directed the ministry "to consider the qualified teachers for regularization irrespective of their categorization, ad hoc, on daily wages or on contract basis taking into consideration their pervious length of services against regular posts at earliest opportunity available".

Fearing that they would be victimised during the regularisation process by the directorate officials, they have demanded that the regularisation should be made on the basis of their efficiency report and selection should be based on the performance results of teachers.

Its pertinent to mention here that Federal Minister for Education Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani had directed the officials of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) either to pay the salaries to the teachers or not to get funds from the students during two-month long summer vacation. The vacation has been ended but they were not given salaries.

More than 500 teachers of 19 model colleges in the Federal Capital work on daily wages. Despite that they have been working for years and many of them have spent 10 to 17 years of their lives in these institutions yet their services have not been regularised by the Ministry of Education.

The Islamabad High Court has also issued a stay order, stopping the Ministry of Education and Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) from any fresh recruitment in Islamabad Model Colleges. The nation