February 07, 2007	Wednesday	Muharram 18, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: More than 100 teachers of a local girls college staged a protest demonstration on the campus against what they called “highly discriminatory” service rules being introduced in their institution.

Teachers of the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) College for Girls, F-8/2, criticised the foundation for introducing a policy under which teachers serving on contract basis would have to apply afresh.

In the past, the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation Board of Governors as a routine practice regularised the college’s contract teachers upon availability of permanent positions.

But recently the foundation has announced vacancies for teachers at the college, the protesting staff told Dawn, adding that: “We (teachers working on contract) have been asked to apply for those vacancies along with fresh applicants.”

They said this was something beyond understanding. “Some of us are working here for more than five years and were selected after a certain selection procedure.”

Similarly, new jobs are again on contract basis, “then why they are asking us to apply for another contract, when we are already working on one,” the teachers said.

Interestingly, some of teachers whose salaries increased with annual increments have been asked to work on lesser salaries under the new selection policy, which is a kind of humiliation for the senior serving teachers, they said.

The foundation has different service rules for its boys college, where they offer handsome salary structures, the protesters said, adding that staff at the girls college were still called helper, junior and senior teachers.

“We have no objection in taking exams and appearing for interviews if our services are regularised,” they responded to a question.