Hundreds of Teachers hold sit-in for minimum pay at Charing cross

Hundreds of employees, including women teachers, of an internationally-funded literacy project on Thursday held a sit-in at Charing Cross, The Mall, and demanded minimum wage and regularisation of their jobs.
The Literacy and Non Formal Basic Education Department (LNFBE) was launched in 2002 to make Punjab 100pc literate by 2030 with the support of Unicef, Unesco and Plan International.
The department is running six projects, including the Punjab Non Formal Education Project (PNFEP), Taleem Sab Ke Lye (TSKL), Monitoring and Evaluation Project, Human Resource Development Institute (HRDI) and Curriculum and Material Development Project (CMDP). About 14,000 teachers and 1,206 project management unit (PMU) employees were recruited by the department.
The Punjab Literacy Association (PLA), the employees representative organisation, was leading the protest in which both male and female workers of the department from across the province participated and demanded regularisation of their jobs besides implementation of minimum wage. Some women workers were also carrying their children at the sit-in.PLA president Rai Zohaib Asghar said they would continue protesting until acceptance of their demands and minimum salary of Rs15,000.
The protesters complained that they were being harassed by their higher-ups for starting the protest drive. They said at least 10 employees had been issued termination letters, including PLA’s information secretary, while the police had detained some of their colleagues coming from Bahawalpur.
One of the teachers, Jahangir Qasim, from Khanewal told Dawn he was working with the department since 2008 and the government had neither regularised his job nor increased his salary.
“I have crossed the age limit for any other public sector job but now the government is not regularising my job.”
He added the opposition members were approaching them to listen to their grievances but no one from the government had contacted or appeared at the sit-in.
Shazia, a teacher from Layyah, said she was working for the department for a decade.
“I started with Rs1,000 and for the last four years, I am getting Rs5,000. I have been writing to the authorities for a raise for years but to no avail,” she complained.
She said she was teaching children from poor backgrounds who were unable to study even at free government schools.
“I teach them at my home and I am also responsible to provide classrooms and bear expenses on electricity and other amenities from this salary (Rs5,000),” she complained.
Punjab Assembly opposition members, including Shahabuddin Khan Sehar (PPP) and Dr Wasim Akhtar (Jamaat-i-Islami) visited the protesters and assured them of their support.
Talking to Dawn, Mr Sehar lambasted the government for not implementing the minimum wage for the teachers working for education. He said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif always claimed that he had focused education sector but he did not implement the minimum wage for teachers which was shameful. He demanded regularisation of the protesting teachers and the employees and the minimum wage for them.
The sit-in started early on Thursday and the protesters resolved to continue it until their demands were accepted. Additional Secretary Literacy Ijaz Goraya visited the sit-in at night and assured it’s participants that their demands would be accepted. He said the regularisation of the LNFBE employees and teachers would follow a third-party evaluation of the department. The protest ended at his assurance.
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