PESHAWAR: Lack of promotion opportunities has been affecting the teachers of Islamia Collegiate School (ICS), according to ICS Teachers Association’s office-bearers.

The association’s president, Masoom Khattak, told this reporter that teachers at the ICS had not been promoted in line with the prescribed rules despite approval of the syndicate in this regard.

Built in 1913 the ICS provided the basis for establishment of Islamia College the same year, but its teachers have not been getting due attention by the administration of Islamia College University (ICU). The status of Islamia College was elevated as ICU in 2008 and the ICS became its constituent school.

“Over 95 regular teachers of ICS have not been promoted in line with the prescribed criteria under which their colleagues in the University Public School and University Model School, the two constituent institutions of the University of Peshawar (UoP), were promoted in 2009,” Mr Khattak said.

ICU adopted the statutes of UoP when it assumed the status of a separate university and its staff and teachers were promoted, but the ICS teachers and staff were left out. The services of 22 temporary teachers having MA (B.Ed.) qualification and working from the past 10 to 15 years have also not been regularised, he said.

“Teachers don’t have representation in the syndicate, the decision-making body of the ICU, due to which they aren’t getting their rights,” he said.

University registrar says qualified teachers not denied promotion

Shaukat Ali, the association’s general secretary, said that the syndicate had approved promotion of their teachers on May 23, 2012 but the decision was not implemented. He said that the ICU teachers were given promotion in 2008, but the ICS teachers had been awaiting the same from the past one and half decade. Mr Ali said that some teachers were approved for promotion in the syndicate meeting in May 2012, but the decision was revoked in the next meeting held on April 2013.

Mr Ali claimed that the ICU, which had withheld Rs170 million of the school, also deprived it of an ambulance donated by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Rs1 million donated by former governor Masud Kausar.

ICU registrar, Sareer Bacha, told Dawn that they had promoted three female teachers of ICS on Feb 9 and the others weren’t eligible to be upgraded. “We are strictly following the promotion criteria. No one will be denied promotion if he or she stands qualified,” he said.

About the transfer of ICS funds to ICU, he said that the funds were meant to be used for promotion of education in the constituent schools and it was the ICU’s mandate to spend it. The vice-chancellor is authorised to make decisions regarding ICU and its constituent colleges, Mr Bacha said.

Published in Dawn February 18th , 2015

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