ISLAMABAD, June 7: The education ministry is working on a project to provide a uniform service structure to teachers at school and college level throughout the country with enhanced salaries, official sources told Dawn.

In this regard, the federal education minister, Zobaida Jalal, has already moved a summary, seeking the finance ministry's recommendation, the sources said. At present, all the four provinces, the federal capital, AJK and FATA have their own service structure of teachers with a significant difference in their pay structures.

Therefore, to have a uniform pay structure for teachers throughout the country, the ministry has initiated this proposal which would hopefully be finalized in the near future, they said.

In this reference, the education minister has called inter- provincial meeting of education ministries, secretaries with representatives concerned from the AJK, FATA, and the federal capital in the last week of June.

Under the reform package, teachers will be given professional cadres according to which a teacher even of primary school will be able to get promotion up to grade 20.

Likewise, the education ministry has also asked the finance managers to prepare a special package for teachers after the upcoming budget. Meanwhile, an official statement of the education ministry on Monday quoted the education minister as saying that the government had finally decided to offer a package to the government schoolteachers.

She was meeting the office-bearers of the All Pakistan Muttahida Teachers Front (AMTF) led by Haji Jalal Khan. The minister assured the delegation that the government had assigned a special status to teachers and expected the best out of them. She said the government had taken a number of steps to improve the quality of education in the country through teachers' training.

She maintained that more and more teachers would get state- of-the-art training in the developed countries after the upcoming budget. The minister assured the members of the delegation that she was in constant contact with the finance ministry to secure its commitment on the demands made by the AMTF.

Haji Jalal Khan said the current curriculum controversy was fanned by some religio-political elements without looking into the factual position of the issue. He said being the representative of the forum he found nothing against the injunctions of Islam and the ideology of Pakistan.

He maintained that if there were anything against the guiding principles of Islam and the country's ideology in the curriculum, he would be the first to stand against such moves. He suggested that the present curriculum should be loaded with new ideas and trends of the modern era.