HYDERABAD: Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Hyderabad Chairman Prof Mohammad Memon has urged the Sindh government to clear dues of Rs335.095 million of BISE Hyderabad.

He feared that if the dues of Rs1.735 billion of all Sindh’s education boards were not cleared, their employees could resort to a pen-down strike and stop work for preparation of annual results 2020 based on government’s promotion policy.

In a letter dated Aug 10 and addressed to the secretary of boards and universities, he reminded the government that office-bearers of the All Pakistan Clerks Association (Apca) had given him a representation on Aug 8 which was addressed to all boards’ chairmen.

Mr Memon informed that he explained to Apca that the boards’ managements and department of universities and boards were trying their best to get outstanding dues against the fee exemption, extended to the students from class IX to XII, released from the government, but Apca seemed dissatisfied with his explanation. “Apca thinks that it was utter failure of the boards’ managements that they could not pursue the department to get payment of the exempted fees released on time,” he wrote.

He said the Hyderabad board management had made correspondence on several occasions to seek early release of the current and outstanding dues of the exempted fees. He urged the government to release the amount by Aug 17 to make payments to vendors, who had supplied examination material, stationery and equipment, and to examination staff (internal/external centre superintendents and others) under the head of salary, pension and retirement benefits.

He said the vendors were pressuring him and demanding clearance of their dues. They had started approaching the provincial ombudsman and courts, which would cause embarrassment to the board. He said that school/college teachers’ associations had also threatened to protest against BISE for delay in their payments.

He recalled that Apca had submitted its representation on June 1 which was forwarded to the boards and universities department on June 2, indicating that if the outstanding exempted fees were not cleared, they would resort to protest.

The BISE chairman disclosed that he had received Rs133.545m which was about 34 per cent of the total amount of Rs392.781m for financial year 2019-20. He sought release of the remaining amount of Rs259.236m for FY 2019-20 along with outstanding amount of Rs75.859m for previous years.

The total outstanding amount, he said, stood at Rs335.095m for three fiscal years from 2017 to 2019, which badly affected the BISE finances.

He said that delay in release of the exempted fees was also affecting other education boards of Sindh and chairmen of those boards had also submitted a joint representation on July 23.

He said that a meeting of all boards’ chairmen was held at Hyderabad BISE where the Apca delegation met them and handing over their representation wherein they prayed for release of the pending dues of all the boards amounting to over Rs1.735bn by Aug 17. In case of failure, they threatened a pen-down strike in all boards, he said.

He said they would stop work for preparation of secondary school certificate/higher secondary certificate results 2020 based on promotion policy of the Sindh government and would approach court of law also.

“Since operations of the education boards had been badly affected due to Covid-19 for five months, it will add more complexities and challenges to their function if staff unions go on pen-down strike,” he apprehended.

He urged the secretary of the boards and universities to release Rs335.095m to BISE Hyderabad to avoid such protests.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2020