ISLAMABAD, Sept 6: For the last over one month, teachers working with the Aga Khan Education Service (AKES) Chitral have been on strike, putting the future of thousands of students at stake. However, the AKES administration seems unmoved to resolve the issue and ensure uninterrupted academic activities in the institutions.

There are about 310 male and female teachers working in the 50 schools for girls in mostly remote areas of the district. Their demands include pay raise to meet rising cost of living, better service conditions and an end to wide gap in the salary structure of the teaching and management staff.

Three years back, the teachers had also boycotted classes for two months till the AKES management promised to resolve their problems on the intervention of Ismaili Regional Council. However, the AKES failed to fulfil its commitment creating more frustration and discontentment among the educators.Some of the teachers told Dawn that rising inflation had badly affected their lives as the institution did not raise wages in accordance with the market trends. They said teachers holding M.A., B.Ed and other degrees and working for the last about 28 years were getting salaries up to Rs13,000 while lower grade teachers were being paid Rs6,000 to Rs8,000 only. They demanded that their salaries be either raised by 200 per cent or brought at par with their counterparts in government schools.

Meanwhile, parents are perturbed over the future of their children saying for the last over one month they had been sitting idle due to the teachers' strike. They said in case their courses were not completed on time, the students may lose a whole academic year.

“The way the AKES high-ups are responding to the issue clearly shows that they are not interested in fulfilling the core purpose for which Aga Khan had established the organisation,” they remarked.

The parents said the AKES high-ups sitting in Karachi were oblivious of the conditions in Chitral schools and were presenting cosy picture to Prince Aga Khan. They said the organisation can meet teachers' demands by reducing overhead cost, including downsizing the unnecessarily large administrative staff who were drawing huge salaries along with other facilities and perks. “If the district government can run a bigger establishment with one office, why can't the AKES,” they asked.

When contacted for comments, an official at the AKES Chitral office said the organisation was formulating long and short-term plans to resolve the problems of the teachers.

He said though the demands of the teachers were genuine, the AKES was not in a position nor bound to bring their salaries at par with teachers of government schools. He claimed that the teachers were performing their duties as usual and there was no disruption to academic activities in any AKES school.