PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Professors and Lecturers Association has demanded of the provincial government to upgrade them and provide them special allowances besides regularising the services of their ad hoc colleagues.

“We were promised professional allowance like the one given to doctors but look how we have ended up on the streets owing to neglect of the PTI government, which promised change and emergency in education sector,” said a group of college professors, who were drenched in sweat at a protest camp held for the third consecutive day near Peshawar Press Club.

Nasrullah Khan Yousafzai, former president of KPPLAS, said that chief minister had promised to upgrade them, regularise the services of ad hoc lecturers and award them professional allowance but nothing happened.

“We go to college to perform our duty and then come here to join the protest. Mushtaq Ghani came here to meet us but our demands are still unfulfilled,” he said.

Junaid Nisar, another senior teacher from Mardan, said that from patwari to police there had been special allowances and upgradation in the departments but college teachers and lecturers were ignored.

“We are promoted after more than a decade. We join the service in BPS-7 but after 15, 16 years we make it to BPS-18 or 19. We are hired by Public Service Commission after tough examination yet we are not upgraded. We are facing discrimination and injustice,” he said.

Yar Mohammad Toofan, the chairman of KPPLAS action committee, said that during his 27 years of service, he spent 18 years in BPS-17 and he might retire in BPS-19. He that government did not take them or their demands serious and they were forced to stage protest.

Prof Khalid Khattak, another senior teacher, said that they would take the protest to Banigala, the residence of PTI chairman Imran Khan, and nobody would be able to push them back if their demands were not met.

The KPPLA members had been holding protest to demand upgradation and professional allowance. They also demand regularisation of teaching assistants and ad hoc lecturers of Fata colleges.

They said that some ministers visited their protest camp and assured them of help but they did not hear anything from them so far.

Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2017