PESHAWAR, Jan 15: Senior schoolteachers and headmasters have expressed concern over delay in their promotions and demanded of the government to upgrade their scale from BPS-17 to BPS-18. Speaking at a press conference in Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday, All Headmasters Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, president Khairullah Hawari said that the headmasters were not allowed promotion till their retirement and this was a great injustice with them. He warned the government of staging a protest sit-in in front of the provincial assembly building if their demand was accepted.

Mr Hawari said that nearly 2,000 headmasters and headmistresses in different schools of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (Fata) had been working in grade-17 and many had retired in the same grade, but could not get promotion.

He said that the scale of teachers of different cadres had been upgraded two times in last 10 years, but headmasters were ignored.

Accompanied by the association’s general secretary Shamsul Islam and other office-bearers, he said that they had launched a peaceful protest movement and its first phase would be completed on Jan 28.

He said the protest demonstrations would be held in all districts and tribal agencies in the second phase from February 1, while in the third phase they would start staging sit-in protests outside the provincial assembly. —Bureau Report