Academic Degrees not valued in Education Department in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa; apprehension rises in the Teachers         

            At last the Teachers have realised that the progress of the Country is dependent on the progress of the Teachers themselves. But the Government is not giving any value to the academic or professional qualifications of the Teachers. Recently, the Government upgraded teachers from grade BPS-7, BPS-9 and BPS-10 to BPS-12, not by dint of their personal qualification but on the basis of 10 years service. All those teachers who had 10 years’ service at their credit were upgraded to BPS-12 which shows that the Education Department has no regard to the personal qualification of the Teachers. A Matriculate Teacher and M.A. Teacher were given same scale of pay which is nothing but to ignore the personal qualification of the Teacher and giving value only to his service. A highly qualified teacher needs to be given preference either in shape of Advance Increments or in shape of Scale of Pay.

            There is no proper procedure of promotion of Teachers in the Province of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa right from the Primary to the Secondary level. A Primary school teacher will always be a primary teacher irrespective of his personal qualification. Officially no list of such qualified teachers is maintained for their promotion and that is why when a post becomes vacant at the Secondary level, it is filled with a direct appointment which is injustice with the already serving qualified teacher.

            Recently, a large number of persons were appointed on BPS-16 posts on contract basis without undergoing the proper procedure of Public Service Commission and later on were rendered permanent by passing an Act of the Assembly which is a great injustice with those qualified teachers who were serving on C.T and PST posts. It was first the right of the serving teachers to be promoted and later of the other persons when all the existing qualified teachers had been promoted to the higher posts according to their qualification.

            The apprehension is going from bad to worse which got the shape of demand for the BPS-14 for a B.A. Teacher being a Primary School Teacher and BPS-16 for M.A. Teacher being a Primary School Teacher. If it is properly analysed it is a right and just demand of the Teacher because when the Government is neither giving them posts according to their qualification nor giving them the Pay Scale according to their qualification then what is the significance of their acquired degrees. When they shall get the fruit of their qualification? When every Department’s officials are stressing for their salaries according to their qualification, then why the Teachers should sit silent and contented on the injustice with them? The qualified teachers should knock the doors of the Higher Courts for the removal of this Discriminatory Treatment.

            The Government is requested to sit with the teachers and give them the right which they deserve otherwise it may lead to frustration among the qualified teachers which may produce adverse results both socially and politically.

Manzoor Ahmad Yousafzai

Dated: Tuesday, 11 May 2010.