KARACHI: Govt moves to penalise protesting teachers: Ban on associations
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Aug 25: Sindh Education department, which came out with an outright ban on union activities by employees of public sector educational institutions about a month back, has approved punitive action to be taken against more 100 school and college teachers.
The approval came after their cases were summarily heard by secretary education at a meeting on Friday.However, protesting teachers spread all over the province are in no mood to give up their campaign. They said that they will continue their ongoing movement till the time their due rights were restored and the demands for better status of teachers and improvement in educational system in the province were met.
According to sources in the education department, the actions so far ordered in the case of teachers, included termination of service of two primary school teachers from Badin and sending of dozens of teachers in Naushehro Feroz, Sukkur, Khairpur, Shikarpur, Larkana, Badin, Hyderabad, Khairpur and Jamshoro.
The action has been taken by EDOs and education secretary, who said that teachers were involved in subversive activities and they participated in protest rally against ban on teachers’ associations.
The department solely relied on the clause ‘suspension of employees’ as given in the Removal from Service (Special Powers) Ordinance 2000, said an official, adding that show-cause notices would be issued to the persons in question shortly in order to meet the requirement laid down in the clause.
It was learnt that the education secretary, Sindh, asked the EDOs from outside Karachi at a meeting on Friday to expedite the process of sending teachers on forced leave as the chief minister wanted stern action to discourage those demanding withdrawal of the department’s notification pertaining to ban on teachers’ union activities. The orders in the case of school and college teachers have been issued mainly on August 23 and 24.
Saying that about 16 to 19 teachers had been subjected to action for their involvement in protest campaigns, one official said that 90 per cent of the teachers belonged to colleges outside Karachi.
However, not happy with the development, a teacher said that only a limited number of people had been selected for the departmental action, while the number of protesting teachers numbered in thousands, which gave to understand that authorities had chosen only those who were liked by them.
In the meantime, not deterred by the departmental action and the earlier police action, teachers throughout the province have been preparing for yet another showdown at Karachi on September 5.
They say that government was indifferent towards their grievances and that was why it had resorted to imply an illogical, immoral and unconstitutional policy vis-a-vis education and teacher community.
An office-bearer of the All Pakistan Professors and Lecturers’ Association said that teachers from NWFP and Punjab had decided to join in the struggle by teachers of Sindh. A ‘black day’ will be observed in Punjab and NWFP as well on August 28, he added.
While colleges in Karachi performed as normal, teachers and non-teaching staff of schools and colleges in the interior of Sindh boycotted academic activities on Friday, said another leader of teacher community.
