KARAK: The provincial president of All Primary Teachers Association (APTA) Malik Khalid Khan has criticised the independent monitoring unit (IMU) working in the education department, claiming that the unit’s wrong reporting had resulted in withholding of salaries of hundreds of teachers and cut in salaries of thousands of others by the government.

Addressing a meeting of teachers here on Friday, he claimed that the IMU had been stuffed with inexperienced officials who created a lot of problems for primary schoolteachers.

Khalid Khan alleged interference into the affairs of the education department and accused the concerned high ups of keeping a mum over the matter. “Those who are claiming to bring reforms in education sector have rather pushed the education system to the verge of collapse,” he claimed.

The teachers’ leader regretted that the primary schoolteachers were made to perform polio duties at the cost of loss of precious time of students. “Teachers should be left to performance of their first and foremost job, which is educating pupils.”

The teachers’ provincial president alleged that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf led provincial government was showing non-seriousness towards the teachers’ demands.

He said that teachers would organise a protest sit-in outside the provincial assembly building on March 25 to push for their demands, majority or which was for turning around the education sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He claimed that 50,000 teachers would take part in the protest sit-in.

On the occasion, chairman of the All Teachers Council’s action committee Islamuddin Khan, teachers’ leaders Fiaqzada, Ameer Sirajuddin and APTA district president Javed Iqbal Khattak also spoke on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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