Though inconvenient, teachers Gulab Din and Yar Mohammad live in a classroom at their Government Middle School, Mastak, in Tirah valley of Khyber Agency after duty hours due to unavailability of proper accommodation.

The absence of toilets on the premises adds to their misery.

Gulab Din told Dawn that he went into the fields to relieve himself.

“Those willing to teach children despite uncomfortable circumstances have two options either to use classrooms to lodge or request local residents for accommodation in their houses,” he said.

The teacher insisted the local political administration had adequate funds and vehicles at its disposal but had turned its back on the sufferings of the teaching community.

Woman teacher Fauzia Sultan (name changed on request) made a similar complaint.

She said unavailability of toilets and residential quarters and insecure environment stopped teachers especially women from joining government schools in Fata, especially those located in far-off areas.

Though given show cause notices three times for refusing to serve in distant areas, she asked how she could go to schools, which had no boundary walls or had broken windows and doors.

“I feel highly vulnerable at such schools,” she said.

Fauzia Sultan said her repeated requests to the education department and local administration for transport facility fell on deaf ears.

She said unlike male colleagues, women teachers could neither live on campus after school hours nor could they lodge at the houses of local residents due to the strong opposition of family members.

“It is impossible for us, the women teachers, either to live in classrooms devoid of basic facilities and proper security or stay with strangers,” she said.

In the recent past, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, in a bid to attract schoolteachers to serve in remote areas of the province, announced a lucrative ‘Hard Areas Allowance’ for both men and women. The policy turned out to be a huge success.

Both Gulab Din and Fauzia Sultan strongly feel a similar initiative could contribute a lot to the promotion of education in Fata, especially in its far-flung areas.

The woman teacher also complained about harassment by local residents.

“In the absence of transport facility, we (women teachers) have to cover long distances on foot between schools and bus stops. Youths chase us and pass taunts to our distress,” she said.

Though the Fata education department complained about the women teachers absenting themselves from schools, Fauzia Sultan insisted the officials harassed female teaching staff in the name of the ‘habitual absenteeism’.

“Not only women teachers are harassed by male colleagues but their basic right to promotion and posting at choice locations is usurped by the education department officials,” she said.

According to official figures, teachers at over 5,000 government educational institutions across Fata total around 42,000 and 32,000 of them both men and women are eligible for post upgradation.

In 2012, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had announced and later implemented a policy of the upgradation of the posts of all eligible schoolteachers in the province. However, the Fata teachers await the implementation of the policy for themselves.

The All Fata Teachers Association took up the matter with the Fata secretariat and Safron ministry many times, but to no avail.

President of the association Khan Malik said 32,000 teachers, both men and women, had been denied post upgradation for four years.

“Teachers feel highly insecure and vulnerable,” he said.

Khan Malik said ironically, most of the senior positions tribal teachers were eligible to occupy were given to senior teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Naseer Shah, another office-bearer of the teachers association, believed by inviting applications for 1,700 vacant posts of science and mathematics teachers in tribal areas, the Fata education department had denied the due promotion to senior teachers of the same subjects.

“It blatantly goes against our service structure. We intent to challenge it in the court of law,” he said.

Gulab Din insisted teachers could claim rights by getting together.

He said unregistered organisations had done great harm to the struggle of teachers for rights.

“At present, two to three parallel organisations are operating in all seven tribal agencies and six Frontier Regions with no unified leadership and mutually agreed agenda.

“It is time that we shun differences, disband all unregistered organisations, and unite under the banner of the All Fata Teachers Association for the repeal of an unjustified ban on teacher unions,” he insisted.

Teachers also complained they struggled to benefit from the free medical care which they’re entitled to, and get their medical bills cleared from the directorate of education in Fata secretariat.

According to them, Mehrab Khan, a teacher at a government school in Bara, Khyber Agency, died of renal failure in 2013 but his family has yet to get his medical allowance despite repeated requests to the relevant authorities.

Another teacher, Bahadar Khan, was denied free treatment of his wife at a Peshawar hospital lately with doctors insisting he and family were entitled to free care in Fata hospitals only.

He said his wife suffered from a cardiac problem but Fata didn’t have any hospital, which offered treatment to her.

“I borrowed money from friends and relatives to foot the bill of my wife’s treatment,” he said.

The teacher insisted the Fata education directorate refused to refund the bill saying the treatment was carried out in a Peshawar hospital.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2016