LAHORE, Nov 23: The Punjab Government Schools Senior Staff Association will launch a six-week protest programme to press for the acceptance of its demands from Dec 1.

At the Lahore Press Club on Thursday, association president Hafiz Abdul Nasir and action committee members Zarrar Ahmad, Dr Shabbir Ahmad, Mohammad Akram Sajid, Taj Haider, Rashid Ahmad Bhatti and Allah Bakhsh Qaiser said the teachers would start their protest by observing a black day on Dec 1.

Protest demonstrations would be staged at all district headquarters on Dec 5 to be followed by protest gatherings at the former divisional headquarters on Dec 12. Teachers from all over the province would gather at Data Darbar on Jan 10 and march towards the Assembly Chambers.

They said the Punjab Muttahida Asatiza Mahaz would meet in the provincial metropolis on Jan 11 to chalk out a future programme.

They said the teachers had been forced to launch the protest programme as they had been ignored in the Punjab Education Sector Reforms Programme.

They said matriculate policemen, SHOs and district police officers had been granted an additional allowance of Rs2,000, Rs15,000 and Rs20,000, respectively, but a notification for the grant of teaching allowance of Rs500 to Rs1,000 agreed by the federal government was being delayed.

They said thousands of posts of headmasters and teachers were lying vacant in schools, but millions of rupees were being squandered on the pretext of training of teachers. The educators recruited for the training of teachers on a contract basis were being paid much lower salaries than regular employees.