PESHAWAR: Afghan and Pakistani teachers demonstrated outside the UNHCR’s sub-office here on Thursday against the termination of their colleagues teaching refugee children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Holding placards and shouting slogans, the protesters marched in front of the main office of the UN agency. ‘Oppressive polices of the UNHCR are unacceptable’, read a banner.

Employees from different areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who teach Afghan children in the UNHCR-funded schools in the refugee villages, gathered outside the highly-guarded building.

Zameer Gul, a representative of the Afghan Teachers Association, told Dawn that the UNHCR had sacked 71 Pakistan and Afghan teachers, who had worked in the schools of refugee villages for 35 years, without paying them retirement benefits. He said 41 teachers had been relieved over low educational qualifications, while the rest had reached the retirement age of 60 years.

“The UNHCR should pay bonus to terminated teachers otherwise the protest will continue,” he said.

Mr Gul complained that the UNHCR didn’t implement that policy in Balochistan province.

Over 600 Afghan and Pakistani teachers have been working in the UNHCR-funded 104 schools across KP. Afghan textbooks have been replaced with Pakistani curriculum there.

Meanwhile, the UNHCR issued a statement saying it’s committed to providing quality education to Afghan refugees. According to it, qualified teachers were hired to deliver quality education in refuge villages in line with its international and national education policies. The initiative helped improve educational opportunities and services for Afghan refugees living in Pakistan.

“I’m concerned that due to changes meant to optimize educational opportunities for Afghan refugees, a few teachers were affected and no longer have contracts as incentive workers to teach in the refugee villages,” the statement quoted the head of the UNHCR’s sub-office.

The UNHCR said a total of 87 teachers had reached the retirement age of 60 years or didn’t meet the minimum qualifications anymore to continue to teach in refugee village schools.

“These teachers were originally hired by the local NGOs supported by UNHCR and received contracts as incentive workers. The contracts were to expire in Aug 2020 but, on the request of UNHCR, the NGOs extended them as compensation for their service,” it said.

The UNHCR said the teachers’ contracts were generally renewed yearly depending on the need and extension of the project and at that time, refugee village schools remained operational and qualified teachers continued to provide educational services.

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2021