LAHORE: More than 15,000 underpaid teachers and other employees working with an internationally-funded project continue to strive for regularisation which, they say, had been promised to them.

The project was launched in 2002 with an objective to make Punjab 100pc literate by 2030. The Punjab government had started the Literacy and Non Formal Basic Education Department with the support of Unicef, UNESCO and Plan International.

As many as 14,000 teachers and 1,206 Project Management Unit (PMU) employees were recruited by the department in the province to improve the literacy. The department is running six projects including the Punjab Non Formal Education Project (PNFEP), Taleem Sab Ke Lye (TSKL), the Monitoring and Evaluation Project, the Human Resource Development Institute (HRDI) and the Curriculum and Material Development Project (CMDP).

According to the data available on ‘literacy.punjab.gov.pk’, the department has more than 13,000 Non Formal Basic Education Schools, 400,000 Non Formal Basic Education (NFBE) learners, 6,300 Adult Literacy Centers (ALCs) and 36,000 adult learners.

On Tuesday, a delegation of the Punjab Literacy Association (PLA) called on Minister for Literacy & Non Formal Basic Education Dr Farrukh Javed to demand regularisation of the project staff -- PMU as well as field staff -- implementation of minimum wages for the teachers. The delegation included chairman Irshad Baig, president Rai Zohaib Asghar, general secretary Qudoos Younis, Rana Saif and more than 600 employees.

The PLA chairman said they were working to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to make 100pc literacy till 2030 but were not being regularised by the government. He said the employees instead of being regularised was expelled after completion of a project and 1,206 PMU employees and more than 14,000 teachers may lose the jobs after completion of the six projects on June 30, 2018.

He said they had worked hard to improve the literacy of the province by making two million destitute children and more than 500,000 adults literate during the last 15 years. He said the government was not implementing the minimum wages for the teachers who were educating the underprivileged. The teachers were getting Rs5,000 a month although they personally managed the infrastructure of the non formal schools. He said they would launch protests if their demands are ignored.

Dr Farrukh Javed told the delegation that they would first need to strengthen the department by changing it from project mode to regular. “We need to first regularise the department and later we will regularise all the employees,” he added.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2017