CHITRAL: The women teachers of non-formal basic education schools in different union councils of Chitral district held a protest in front of the deputy commissioner’s office here on Monday against the non-payment of their salaries by the federal government for last eight months.

The teachers said established in 1999, there were 93 such schools for which free classrooms were provided by the teachers in their homes while they were being paid only Rs8,000 salary per month.

They said they contributed to the promotion of literacy in the district and enrolled the children who had left the formal schools due to one reason or the other.

The speakers said the strength of their students ranged from 30 to 54 in different schools with a total of over 4,000 students who belonged to the highly marginalised segment of the society.

“We save the future of such a large number of students every year by keeping them enrolled in our non-formal schools on a paltry salary, and it is sheer injustice with us that we have not been paid our remunerations for last eight months,” deplored a teacher.

PTI local leader Sartaj Ahmed Khan also spoke on the occasion and expressed his resolve to bring the just demand of the teachers to Prime Minister Imran Khan.

ANTI-POLIO DRIVE: A three-day anti-polio campaign kicked off on Monday in all the 24 union councils of the district, where 550 mobile teams will reach 73,606 children, while they will be monitored by 117 area monitors and 20 monitoring officers will supervise the campaign at the union council level.

District EPI coordinator Dr Fayyaz Roomi told Dawn that the campaign was going on despite the snowfall. He said nine transit points had been established at the bus stations and the airport to vaccinate the children.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2018