ISLAMABAD: Owing to the negligence of the Planning Commission and the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE), scores of computer science teachers and their subordinate staff in various educational institutions could not be paid salaries for five months.

Sources said due to the non-payment of salaries the computer science teachers, computer lab in-charges and attendants were performing duties halfheartedly, badly affecting the performance of the students.

According to documents available with Dawn, in the year 2012 as many as 24 computer science teachers, 15 lab in-charges and 50 lab attendants were hired by the FDE under an information technology project, ‘Provision of 11 computer labs to the remaining former F.G./model schools/colleges in ICT’.

As per PC-1, after completion of the two-year project the FDE was to regularise the services of the employees. But for the last five months, the employees have not been paid salaries.

The employees were to be regularised on the completion of a two-year IT project

Talking to Dawn, a senior officer of the FDE said the Planning Commission should be blamed for the delay in finalising the case. He said according to the PC-1 of the two-year project, after completion of the project period the salaries of the employees were to be shifted from the development side to the recurring side (permanent status).

“We had moved the case to the Planning Commission in September 2014 but it has been sitting on the file ever since,” the officer claimed.

“This is injustice with the teachers and students alike, as without salaries the teachers cannot perform well and the ultimate sufferers are the students.”

When contacted, Saifur Rehman, the assistant chief (planning) at the Planning Commission, claimed that the file work was in process and the salaries of the employees would be shifted from the development side to the recurring side in a few days. “The teachers will be paid their pending salaries and their services would be regularised as mentioned in the PC-1,” he said.

Talking about the delay, Mr Rehman said the employees were earlier working on contractual basis and now their cadre has to be shifted from the development side to the recurring side - a process that takes time. Secondly, the evaluation of the project is also a time-consuming process. “There will be no further delay and the issue will be resolved shortly,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2015

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