Zubair Qureshi
After the National Assembly of Pakistan passed the “Protection of Family Life & Wedlock Bill, 2023” around 300 mostly female teachers working on deputation under wedlock in various schools and colleges of Islamabad hope the bill will sail through the Senate of Pakistan as well and after the President’s signature it will finally become an act of the Parliament.
These teachers have been working in the schools under the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) which borrowed their services from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan, Sindh and other parts of the country under wedlock law. According to the wedlock policy, the federal government can borrow the services of a male or female individual whose spouse is working in Islamabad for a period of five years. Under the wedlock rules 10pc quota is fixed for ‘absorption’ of these teachers in the FDE every year. However, for some years this was not being implemented.
The previous government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had promised to give one-time absorption to all the teachers whose service tenure is above five years in the schools. However, that could not see the light of the day as the PTI government ended in April last year.
The ‘deputationist’ teachers after the coalition government of the PDM and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) came into power, re-launched their campaign and raised the matter with Education Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain and Speaker of the National Assembly Raja Pervez Ashraf. Both of them assured they would look into the matter.
Speaker NA, Raja Pervez Ashraf went one step further and gave a ruling in October last year for one-time blanket absorption to all these teachers. However, the FDE once again created hurdles and these teachers had to wait for another nine months till a motion was moved in the National Assembly on behalf of MNA Javaria Zafar Aheer by her colleague Zahra Wadood Fatemi and was unanimously adopted by the House.
“I would like to provide the absorption of employees working under the administrative control of the Federal Directorate of Education for full participation of women in natural life as provided in Article 34 and guaranteed in Article 25 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The protection of the Family Life & Wedlock Bill 2023 be passed,” read out MNA Fatemi in the house. After the house’s unanimous ‘aye’ the bill has been passed and is now on its way to the Upper House where it will be presented on Monday. After passage from the Senate and signing by the President it would become an Act of the Parliament and thus the long-awaited demand of the teachers under wedlock would be accepted by the government.
While talking to Pakistan Observer, these teachers and their heads of schools expressed satisfaction that finally sense prevailed and all the political parties united on a single point agenda.
Almost every month letters were sent from the FDE to provide the No Objection Certificate (NOC). They told us that we were not authorized to work beyond five years despite the fact we have no one to take care of us back in the provinces where we were working before marriage, said a female teacher. A number of them have even challenged the repatriation letters sent by the FDE in the courts and their family life was disturbed due to this litigation. Now teachers with more than five years of service tenure in the FDE schools will be entitled to absorption and their families and their heads would heave a sigh of relief once the bill is signed by the President. They expressed gratitude to the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Speaker of the NA Raja Pervez Ashraf, Education Minister Rana Tanveer Hussain, Maryam Nawaz Sharif and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for extending support to their genuine demands as their families are settled in Islamabad and children are enrolled in schools here.
