PESHAWAR: Although Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has been spending huge amounts on holding protest rallies for the release of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf founder Imran Khan and showing interest in the purchase of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), it has failed to pay salaries to 5,238 teachers of girls’ community schools during the last eight months.

The non-payment of salaries to non-formal schools for girls functioning in far-off areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has endangered the future of 276,000 students enrolled in such institutions.

These schools have been functioning under the auspices of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Elementary and Secondary Education Foundation (E&SEF) for the last many years. The institutions have been established in far-off areas where no government schools exist.

“The teachers, who have not received salaries, are posted to 2,200 girls’ community schools, 541 basic education center schools (BECS) and 275 National Commission of Human Development (NCHD) schools,” sources told this scribe. The provincial government has fixed Rs36,000 as minimum wage for unskilled labour, however, government is paying Rs21,000 salary to teachers of these schools.

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A senior official in E&SEF told Dawn that the foundation required Rs2 billion to pay salaries to teachers but the provincial government was reluctant to release funds to it.

He said that since the transfer of the then managing director of E&SEF, Zareeful Maani, in September 2023, the foundation was not working efficiently owing to frequent transfers of its managing directors and lack of efforts to get the funds released.

“Mr Maani had made tireless efforts for putting life in the otherwise dead foundation because managing directors in the past had taken no interest in it as they had just taken handsome salaries,” said the official.

He said that after the transfer of Ms Maani in September 2023, the foundation was headed on additional charge basis by the then-special secretary of elementary and secondary education department till appointment of Attaur Rehman as managing director in December 2023.

He said that Mr Rehman was transferred in August 2024 and the charge of E&SEF was given to the managing director of Merged Areas Education Foundation, Mian Ainullah, till the appointment of Khawaja Faheem Sajjad as its managing director in mid-September.

One of the teachers of girls’ community schools told Dawn that teachers of the community schools were more hard workers than the regular teachers of government schools.

She said that people had more trust in them that was why each GCS had enrolled 100 to 300 students.

“We are in trouble as we have not received our salaries since March,” she said, wishing not to be named. She said that she covered a distance of 10 kilometres to reach the school and changed several public transport vehicles as teachers of those schools were unable to hire a Suzuki van or rikshaw for pick and drop.

Earlier, she said, the teachers of her schools had hired a rikshaw for their pick and drop. However, they were unable to pay the driver since the government stopped paying them salaries, she added.

The teacher said that she knew that several GCS schools had been closed owing to non-payment of salaries to teachers. She added that there were also possibilities of closure of more schools if the government didn’t release salaries to teachers immediately.

“Now we are taking loans from our relatives to fulfil our basic needs as we have no other source of income,” she said.

On one hand, the provincial government has not been paying salaries to teachers but on the hand, the district programme officers have made their lives miserable on one pretext or other, according to a teacher.

Officials in E&SEF told Dawn that as per government’s criteria for establishment of GCS, local community would provide a building of two or three rooms for the school while the government would provide teachers, books for students, chairs for teachers, table, whiteboard and other school-related materials to the institutions.

However, several teachers of GCS told Dawn that the community had not provided buildings for schools instead teachers hired buildings and paid rent collectively from their salaries.

They said that owners of the buildings were also putting pressure on them to pay the rent or vacate the building. “How we will pay the rent as the government has stopped our salaries,” they questioned.

Sources in E&SEF confirmed to this scribe that 40 per cent rents of schools were paid by teachers from their salaries.

As usual, Minister for Education Faisal Tarakai didn’t respond to the queries forwarded on his WhatsApp regarding the non-payment of salaries to teachers.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2024