RAWALPINDI, Dec 18: Around 600 teaching assistants, including women, in the district are without salary since their appointment in August because the provincial government has not allocated the budget as yet, it has been learnt.

The teaching assistants were appointed by the principals of different colleges on the directives of the education secretary to make up for the shortage of regular lecturers.

Some 2,200 assistants were appointed on six-month contract throughout Punjab and they were to be paid Rs8,000 every month as salary. As per the plan, they would be removed from the assignment after appointment of regular lecturers through the Punjab Public Service Commission. However, in case no regular teachers are available their contract would be extended.

As these assistants had to work on the post of lecturers, the minimum qualification for them was a postgraduate degree in the relevant subject, Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) President Ilyas Qureshi.

He said they had written to the education department in Lahore about the issue, but they learnt that no funds had been allocated for the new inductions.

A representative of the college teachers said it was beyond comprehension that the teachers were appointed to run the business smoothly without arranging their salary. A teaching assistant inducted for teaching Urdu at Gordon College told Dawn that many male and female teachers had given up their assignments for not being paid for the last four months. He said highly qualified boys and girls accepted the honorable teaching job but they were being exploited as no payment was being made to them.

The lecturer, who insisted on anonymity, said it was ironical that the education department succeeded in utilising them in the peak period of the academic year from September to December but had not paid them the salary.

When contacted, District Officer (DO) Colleges Ulfat Janjua said the appointments were made by the heads of the respective colleges and the teachers were to be paid through the district accounts office.

The district accounts officer, on the other hand, said he had received no funds for the salaries of the contract teachers, adding that as soon as the budget was allocated, the salaries would be disbursed.