PESHAWAR: PML-N provincial president Amir Muqam has rejected the reforms process in the education department and assured teachers of the government schools that his party will extend support to them in and outside the parliament.

Talking to delegations of the Grand Teachers Alliance and Schools Officers Alliance at his residence here on Sunday, he said that the provincial government had disturbed all the departments and confused both the public and employees in the name of reforms.

Mr Muqam said that the health reforms had already failed to bear any positive result which was clear from the role of health department in the campaign against dengue epidemic, which had taken lives of several people and hundreds were still under treatment.

He said that the provincial government was bent on disturbing teachers in the name of reforms, but Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz would not let it do so as any irresponsible step on the part of the education department could cause problems for over 140,000 teachers in the province.

He said that it was duty of the government to give the teachers additional incentives so that they could double efforts for imparting quality education to their students. Any irresponsible step on part of the government, he feared, could badly affect the process of education and future of the children.

Mr Muqam said that 117 schools were permanently closed and 223 schools being run in tents while over 10,000 posts of various categories had been vacant in various schools in the province, but the government was least bothered to resolve these problems.

He said that the children of PTI chief Imran Khan were getting education abroad and he had no sympathies with the children of poor people. He asked the party’s parliamentary leader in KP Assembly Aurangzeb Nalota to raise the teachers’ issues in the assembly.

Earlier, the teachers’ representatives Samiullah Khalil and Riaz Bahar Akhunzada briefed Mr Muqam about their problems.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2017