ISLAMABAD, Jan 25: On the instruction of Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, 1,046 trained graduate teachers working in schools of the federal capital were promoted as secondary school teachers from basic pay scale (BPS) 16 to BPS-17 on Wednesday.

Along the notification of promotion issued by the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) also came an approval letter from the Ministry of Finance to immediately release the amount needed for payment to the teachers. The amount will be calculated by the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenues (AGPR) within a week, it has been learnt.

According to a source, besides the 1,046 teachers - 572 females and 474 males - 53 teachers of physical cadre will also be promoted from BPS-16 to BPS-17 next week.

One of the promoted teachers said: "Over a thousand teachers remained stuck in grade 16 for the last 15 to 20 years and there was no hope that they would be promoted. We were not getting the benefit of salary increase announced by the government every year because our salary had reached the highest level of the pay scale."

The teachers said they should have been promoted almost 10 years back but the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) and the Ministry of Education did not bother to take up the issue in the past. After devolution of the ministry, the teachers requested the prime minister who ordered their promotion.

A teacher who has been living in a private house said due to the delay in promotion his ceiling allowance could not be increased and he had to shift to Rawalpindi but now it would be possible for him to hire a house in the federal capital again and live near the school in which his children were studying.

Spokesman for Federal Government Teachers Association Rai Shafqat Hussain appreciated the teachers' promotion and expressed the hope that problems being faced by contract teachers and those who have come to the city on the wedlock policy would also be resolved.

Joint Secretary CADD Rafique Tahir confirmed that the notification for promotion of the teacher had been issued. He said it was for the first time in the federal capital that the package of promotion for the teachers had been given by the prime minister.

He said there were signatures of both the secretaries of establishment and finance, so the additional amount, which would not be more than a few hundred million, would be released as soon as it is calculated by the AGPR.