SWABI: The government’s decision to grant regular BPS-17 to the Secondary School Teachers (SSTs) though a welcome step could create administrative problems for the headmasters in the same scale, sources said.

They said that the Headmasters Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has held a meeting in Peshawar and welcomed the government’s policy which would benefit various senior teachers after meeting their longstanding demand.

However, the headmasters demanded that they should also be promoted to next grade and if the government failed it would create administrative problems for them to run affairs of the schools.

The sources said that in this connection the district general secretary of Headmasters Association, Syed Nusair Bacha, and other members of the union also met with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaisar and apprised him of the administrative complications which might arise soon in schools.

Sources claimed that Mr Qaisar admitted that the new promotion policy had created a peculiar situation for the headmasters and they rightly demanded elevation of their grade.

When contacted, Mr Bacha said that he had told Mr Qaisar that in some higher secondary schools the headmasters had been working in BPS-17, but the subject specialists in BPS-18 and BPS-19 would have to work under their supervision.

“It is astonishing that the immediate officer would remain in BPS-17 while some of his subordinates would work under him in BPS-18 and BPS-19,” he said, adding that this could create problems when he would write the annual confidential report of the upper grade officers.

He said that in that situation the upper grade officers might not accept the headmaster’s recommendations.

He said that according to the new policy the SSTs with M.Ed and MA education would be promoted to BPS-17 and the teachers who had BA or B.Sc qualification would be promoted to BPS-17 after seven years of service.

Published in Dawn, January 11th, 2015

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