LAHORE: Hundreds of teachers on Monday held a rally from press club to the Punjab Assembly, demanding unconditional regularisation of 11,000 educators and secondary school teachers.

The teachers were holding a sit-in on The Mall outside the Punjab Assembly till filing of this report. However, no one from the government side approached them to hold negotiation with them over their demands.

Secondary School Educators Regularisation Movement Punjab (SSERMP) and Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) had jointly launched a series of demonstrations for regularisation of teachers.

The teachers’ representative bodies throughout the province have been protesting against the provincial government decision imposing the condition of clearing the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) examination for these teachers. These bodies demand the government to regularise them as they had already fulfill the criteria.

The previous government had regularised the secondary school teachers (SSTs), who were appointed prior to 2012. The then chief minister Shehbaz Sharif had issued an executive order on Aug 7, 2015, for their regularisation.

The condition of clearing the PPSC exam for regularisation was introduced in 2013, but it was set aside by the then chief minister through this executive order.

The present government issued a letter on March 1, 2019, to all the chief executive officers (CEOs) of district education authorities (DEAs) in Punjab regarding the regularisation of educators under Punjab Regularization of Service Act 2018. Under the ACT teachers will have to pass the PPSC examination for regularisation of their services.

SSERMP and PTU had formed a core committee comprising teachers representatives from different districts of the province to hold negotiation with the government for regularisation of 11,000 teachers. The committee members include Muhammad Imran, Syed Qasim Bokhari, Rana Liaqat, Ghulam Fareed, Zeeshan Uppal, Basit Bhatti, Khizer Hayat Bhatti, and Rana Adnan.

The committee members told the media that they were serving as SSTs since the last six years, but the government did not regularise them.

They said it was clearly mentioned in their letter of agreement that they would be regularised without any test or interview after completing five years of service.

“We passed the NTS test and then appeared for an interview after which we were selected as educators. However, the present government wants to send us home through this unjustified condition,” they said.

They said that they would continue their sit-in outside the assembly till the acceptance of their demands.

Replying to a query about negotiations, they said that so far only a superintendent of police (SP) had approached them and asked to clear the road for traffic. The SP had assured them that their demands would be forwarded to the government.

They said that no one from the school education department or Punjab government had approached them for negotiations.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2020