Zubair Qureshi
Teachers of Islamabad schools are in a fix “to teach or not to teach” as on one hand their heads have asked them to be the part of the protest against the Local Government Ordinance, 2021and boycott the classes, while on the other hand the Federal Directorate of Education through a directive has asked them to start work as the winter vacations are over.
“We are facing between the devil and the deep sea like situation as our heads have ‘unofficially’ allowed us to boycott but the FDE the regulatory body of around 400 public sector schools of Islamabad has asked all the heads to stick to the winter vacation schedule that have ended on January 8 and make sure their schools are carrying out academic activities with full strength from Monday, Jan 9,” said a number of teachers while talking to Pakistan Observer Monday.
The FDE notification said, “It is observed with the grave concerns that there are messages circulating on social media to suspend academic activities in FDE’s educational institutions on Monday, January 10,2022 in the pretext of ongoing protests on the account of introduction of ICT Local Government Ordinance 2021. In this regard it is recapitulated that official instruction of FDE stand in place and any violations shall be dealt accordingly.”
It further said: “It is to reiterate that all educational institutions are to resume their educational activities w.e.f January 10, 2022 after winter vacations and there must not be any suspension of academic activities to avoid any more academic losses for students.”
These mixed signals are causing confusion among teaching staff, however, majority of them have decided to side by their heads refusing to start academic activities from Monday.
A meeting of the heads and senior teachers held on Monday in the G-7/2 model college for boys to discuss the next course of action and it was decided to resist the government’s (FDE) directive with full force, said the head of an FDE school requesting anonymity.
Meanwhile an action committee of FDE employees headed by Fazal-i-Mola has been holding meetings with the government and in the general body meeting, the committee will share the proposed amendment, being offered by the government to be made to an ordinance, she said.
If the general body calls for complete deletion of section 166 of the ordinance, we will continue our strike till the deletion of this clause, she said adding “otherwise, the general body will finalise the amendment to the ordinance.”
The protesting schoolteachers have been demanding withdrawal of the government’s decision to place public-sector schools under the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) through the said ordinance.
Earlier before winter vacation, the teachers along with the non-teaching staff from 390 schools staged two massive protests outside the Parliament House.
They have been supported by the opposition parties including PML-N leaders Maryam Nawaz, Khawaja Asif, Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry and Anjum Aqeel, PPP leader Sibtul Hassan Bukhari and Mian Aslam of Jamaat-i-Islami. Others have already opposed the said ordinance after expressing their sympathy with teachers.
Teachers say that they would not accept the ordinance, come what may and added that through an ordinance educational institutions were being placed under the local government. The local government is supposed to generate its own resources and funds while Islamabad’s education sector requires around Rs20 billion every year, something which is beyond the capacity of the local government, teachers said, adding in case the decision was not reversed, the local government could go for privatisation of schools.
It is reliably learnt that the school managements had requested parents not to send their students on Monday as educational activities will not take place.
