September 03, 2007	Monday	Sha'aban 20, 1428

LAHORE, Sept 2: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi on Sunday announced an annual Rs3.75 billion relief package for the schoolteachers, including those on a contract, giving them different allowances and promotion ladders to higher pay scales.

He also announced one advance increment for all teachers which will cost Rs500 million, asking them to start hard work to give proper education to the children of the poor studying in government schools.

Also pledging a relief package for the contractual teachers, he said they were not temporary employees of the government and would continue to perform their duty without any problem.

The chief minister gave the new package at a teachers’ convention here at Alhamra, also withdrawing the condition of improving qualification for promotion to the higher grades for various categories of schoolteachers.

A large number of schoolteachers from all over the province attended the convention.

The package has been implemented with immediate effect and it has been prepared by Chief Secretary Salman Siddique in consultation with main associations of teachers in one month.

As many as 350,000 teachers are working in 65,000 schools in Punjab. They had last got a relief package in 1990, but it was not across the board like the one announced by the chief minister.

According to the package, every teacher will now get a monthly Rs450 conveyance allowance which was earlier given to only those working in nine cities in the province. The facility will cost an annual Rs1.23 billion to the government.

The monthly in-charge allowance of head teachers, which the chief minister said was regrettably low, has been increased from Rs20 to Rs250 (primary), Rs30 to Rs350 (elementary), Rs50 to Rs600 (high) and Rs350 to Rs750 (higher secondary). This will cost an annual Rs184 million, benefiting 65,000 headmasters working in all the four categories of schools.