July 27, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 23, 1429

SWABI, July 26: About 600 primary schoolteachers (PSTs) appointed on contract basis in October 2004 by the previous provincial government of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) have demanded regularisation of their services, saying they would launch a movement to achieve this objective.

In a meeting here on Saturday, the teachers said that they had contacted All Teachers Association (ATA), Malgari Ustazan and other teachers’ organisations to take them into confidence and seek their support for the just struggle.

They said that the federal government’s announcement about the regularisation of services of temporary employees had infused courage into them. They said that Federal Finance Minister Syed Naveed Qamar in his budget speech at the National Assembly on June 11 said that the regularisation of contract staff from BPS-1 to BPS-15 had been proposed.

The teachers said that now it was time to use all the available options for urging the government for the just demand.

They demanded that in the light of the Federal government’s desire, the NWFP government should also take steps directing executive district officer Education in each district to process the teachers’ cases.

They said that the MMA-led government made them entitled to getting annual increase and other raise in the salaries, but they were deprived from commutation and pension, like the other teachers.

The current policy they said had created a sense of deprivation among the teachers who work on contract-basis. “The policy forced us to search for permanent jobs in the other departments instead of focusing fully on our duty. We are preoccupied about our status,” said one of them.

The officials concerned, they said, could terminate their services without prior notice under the terms and conditions of the contract.

They said that they performed their duties, but the sword of termination was hanging over their heads.