LANDI KOTAL: The enrolment drive launched by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor under his Education Emergency Plan in Fata has received a major setback as teachers from across the region have announced to boycott the drive to press the government to upgrade them.

Talking to Dawn, All-Fata Teachers Association president Khan Malik said teachers in all the government schools in Fata would boycott their classes to protest the government’s failure to acknowledge its commitment of implementing the much-awaited policy of teachers’ upgradation.

He said in the second phase of their protest, all the schools would be closed on April 20 while teachers would proceed to Islamabad for an indefinite protest sit-in.

“We had called off our protest in Islamabad in December last year after getting an assurance by officials of the ministry of Safron, Fata secretariat and parliamentarians of tribal areas that the upgradation policy would be implemented in a month,” he said.

Khan Malik insisted that the enrollment drive would fail unless the tribal teachers were honoured with their due legal rights. He said over 5,000 male and female teachers were awaiting their upgradation.

KP governor had on April 8 launched the drive to enroll 400,000 tribal children in government schools across Fata under the three years Education Emergency Plan. The target for the current year was set at 150,000.

ARMS PUT ON DISPLAY: Swat Scouts on Sunday put on display huge quantity of arms and ammunitions they had seized during raids in different localities in Malagori area of Jamrud tehsil.

Briefing journalists Captain Sayem of Swat Scouts said raids were conducted in Lwarra Maina, Marble Chowk and Sokrhi localities of Malagori from where they seized the weaponry which was concealed underground. Two suspects were also arrested during the raids, he said.

He said the seized weapons included 30 Kalashnikovs, 10 pistols of different bores, 16,000 cartridges and huge quantity of explosives.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2016