Teachers seeking permanent jobs baton-charged near red zone

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For a second time in as many weeks, police baton-charged protesting teachers who were demanding permanent jobs outside Karachi Press Club on Wednesday.The teachers had tried to move toward the Chief Minister House to convey their complaints. However, the police barred the protesters from advancing and arrested around 20 of them, including five female teachers.Earlier last month, the Early Childhood Education Teachers (ECETs) hailing from different districts of the province had stage a sit-in camp outside the KPC. They had also announced they would go on a hunger strike until the government met their demand for giving them permanent jobs.The protesting teachers’ body, the ECET-Ittihad Sindh, said: “During the past 24 days, not a single representative of the Sindh government and the School Education Department bothered to visit the sit-in camp and listen to the grievances of teachers. This is why the ECET-Itihad decided to move towards the red zone and record protest.”Last week on July 23, around 24 protesting ECETs were reportedly detained by the Sindh police when they tried to advance from the KPC to the red zone. Later, the police released these teachers on the promise that they would not move to the high-security zone.“We are just demanding our due right as we have been working on existing positions since 2009,” said ECET representative Syed Murtaza Shah, adding that the Sindh government had also announced it would appoint fresh ECETs by the next year. “But the teachers who served in the same program were told that their services were no longer required, which is clearly injustice.”According to the teachers’ body, the government had hired the ECETs in 2009 on a contractual basis to initiate the Early Learning Program (ELP) in the province under the National Education Policy 2009. The government had tasked the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) with arranging interviews and tests for the appointment of teachers.Afterwards, on the directives of then education minister, the SEF initiated the process of hiring and checked credentials of thousands of candidates. After the completion of the process, around 300 teachers were hired in five districts of the province -- Tando Muhammad Khan, Naushahro Feroze, Khairpur, Ghotki, and Badin. These teachers served at 30 Early Childhood Learning Centers established in each of the districts. As per their appointment letters, the teachers had been hired for one year on a contractual basis which was to be renewed if they wished to continue their service.The government, however, had hired the teachers as an experiment to see the outcomes of these learning centres. The government had also planned that if the projects were successful, the centers would be made a part of the government-administered schooling system, as the web portal of the Reforms Support Unit of the school education department clarifies under the ELP’s introduction.However, after administering 150 centres, the authorities decided not to establish any other centres and extended ELP by establishing schools and nurseries in different parts of the province.On June 30, ELP Assistant Director Imran Bux Arisar informed the ECETs that “it has been decided to formalize and complete the closing of 150 Early Childhood Centers of the ELP under the School Education and Literacy Department with the approval by the SEF’s Board of Governors”.The ECETs were informed that the SEF no longer required their services and would not be paid after June 30. The foundation, however, admitted the teachers’ services at the centres. Earlier in July, these teachers formed ECET-Itihad Sindh and set up their sit-in camp outside the KPC.

from The News International - Karachi https://ift.tt/2YtCgL5
The News International - Karachi