Islamabad’s school teachers working on deputation appeal to PM, Education Minister for regularization
Hundreds of female wedlock teachers working on deputation basis in schools under the administrative control of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) received on Monday a disturbing order by the FDE in which they have been directed to submit details of their deputation period, NOC, stay order etc.
If you have exceeded deputation time limit, you are directed to provide justification of the overstay, the directive further says. These wedlock teachers, mostly elderly women, have been working in the FDE schools for last many years on the single hope that one day they would be regularized by the federal government as some of their colleagues were in the past. However, years come and go but these teachers’ fate continues to hang in balance and moreover they receive such threatening directives from the FDE.
While talking to Pakistan Observer, representatives of Federal Wedlock Deputationist Teachers Association regretted that once again the FDE was using the harassment tactics and these poor teachers whose spouses are working in Islamabad have been asked to provide details of their deputation.
Ironically, the FDE itself seems unaware of the status of its deputationist teachers, said one of the representatives of the federal wedlock teachers’ association reminding the directorate that majority of these wedlock teachers are working in Islamabad’s schools on the basis of stay granted by Islamabad High Court in the writ petitions 186/2021. Other teachers who are not party to the writ petition are also working on one ground or the other but the reason is the same: to live with their spouses and families. These teachers have come from different provinces and since they have been working here in Islamabad for several years there is no one left behind in their home districts to take care of them or to provide them shelter. The government in stead of facilitating is harassing them through such directives which is quite unfortunate, said one of the representatives. Moreover, in the writ petition, the court had asked the FDE to decide these teachers’ cases within thirty days keeping in mind their hardships but now around four years have passed these teachers are still working on stay order, he regretted.
It may be noted here that a bill ‘The Protection of Family Life and Wedlock Bill, 2023’ aimed at regularizing all the deputationist teachers has also been pending at the Parliament. Earlier the bill sailed through both the houses but was sent back by the then President Arif Alvi. Now all it needs is the joint nod of the Parliament and these female teachers will have permanent status at the federal government’s schools. These teachers have appealed to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Federal Education & Professional Training Minister, Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Federal Secretary Nadeem Mehbub and DG FDE, Junaid Akhlaq to consider their case sympathetically and allow them to stay in the federal capital with their children and families till the Parliament passes their bill.
