At a time when a number of bills passed by the National Assembly and the Senate of Pakistan have been signed by the President of Pakistan and incorporated as Act of Parliament, a bill related to the ‘welfare and protection of family life’ of 300 teachers on deputation is not yet signed by President Arif Alvi.
In fact the bill has not yet been sent to the President House despite the fact the National Assembly passed it in the last week of July and the Senate on August 7 this year.
Over a month has passed, but the bill was first held at the Prime Minister’s Office for around 25 days and now it has been lying in the Law Ministry for whetting purposes.
If the Secretary Law & Justice Ministry approves it on Thursday (today) it will be sent again to the PM Office and from there it will be sent to the President House, said a senior official of the Law Ministry who is familiar with the procedure.
Another official when contacted by the Pakistan Observer said the movement of a bill is stalled when there is no influential person behind to ‘push’ it.
The interim government’s Minister for Education Madad Ali Sindhi is a kind-hearted man and has recently prioritized the issues of the daily wage teachers assuring them that they will not be removed, however, there is a possibility he might not have heard about this bill ‘Protection of Family Life & Wedlock Bill 2023” which is related to the life of 300 lady teachers in various schools of FDE or he would personally follow it and get it moved to the President House for further action.
In the past, these teachers have been running from pillar to post pleading with every government not to repatriate them to their parent departments as their families were well-settled here and going back to their native towns would mean a complete breakdown of their family life. After their incessant struggle the bill was moved with the consent of all the political parties and both houses of the Parliament passed it. Speaker of the National Assembly Raja Pervaiz Ashraf also gave a ruling in October last year directing the government to induct these teachers on a regular basis.
The affected teachers, on the other hand, have expressed their surprise and anguish over the usual bureaucratic mindset prevailing in PM Kakar’s government that officials were deciding on their own which bills should be forwarded to the President House and which bills should be kept waiting.
“There should be a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for each bill and a certain period of time should be allocated for its movement to the President House,” said a lady teacher while expressing her dismay at the PMO’s lack of interest in teachers’ bill. As we see in society, teachers are not given respect, the same treatment is being given to us at the federal secretariat, she said.
