ISLAMABAD, Nov 5: The teaching and the non-teaching staff of the PAF educational institutions throughout the country are perturbed over the decision of the management to give them only seven per cent raise in salary instead of 15 per cent as announced in the federal budget.

The teachers and other members of the non-teaching staff from different cities contacted Dawn offices and expressed their concern over the management’s attitude towards them.

They said there were 26 PAF schools and colleges in the country out of which two were in Rawalpindi and one in Islamabad. This decision has affected over 4,000 persons and their families, they added.

“We have been given 7 per cent raise in salary and that too from October 1, this year, instead of July 1,” said a teacher on condition of anonymity. He claimed that the non-civilian staff in these institutions had been given 15 per cent raise as announced in the budget which was “discrimination”. He said the teachers and other staff of the federal government educational institutions had also been given 15 per cent raise.

A notification, issued on October 9, states, “The Chief of the Air Staff has very kindly sanctioned Special Adhoc Relief to all the employees of the PAF schools and colleges at the rate of seven per cent of running basic pay drawn on October 1, 2003.”

Clarifying the staff members’ complaint, the notification says, “It is once again emphasized that the PAF schools and colleges are self-financed institutions and thus have no relevance to the government pay package.”

On the other hand, the teachers challenged this claim of the authorities. They said the administration was ignoring a ruling of the Federal Services Tribunal (FST) which had clearly stated, in one of its recent decisions, that “it is not correct to say that the colleges and schools of the PAF are private bodies.”

They said the court had clearly stated that the teachers and other staff of the PAF colleges and schools were also civil servants, as these institutions had adopted the same terms and conditions which were more or less the same as applicable to the employees of other government educational institutions. They said the Supreme Court of Pakistan had also given the same verdict in 1997.

They appealed to the authorities concerned to remove this discrimination and provide a relief to the staff so that they could work with devotion and dedication.