Zubair Qureshi
Federal Caretaker Minister for Education & Professional Training Madad Ali Sindhi has instructed the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) to absorb all those teachers under wedlock who have been serving on deputation for 20 years or more.
These teachers belong to various provinces as well as AJK and GilgitBaltistan (GB) and came to Islamabad as their husbands are serving in the federal capital.
For last many years they have been running from pillar to post to get a permanent status but all the successive governments of the PPP, PML-N and the PTI remained either indifferent to their demands or reluctantly passed legislation that had several loopholes and their fate is still hanging in balance.
In August last year, the Parliament during the PDM regime passed the Family Protection & Wedlock Bill 2023 to grant these around 300 teachers one-time blanket absorption.
Both Houses of the Parliament the National Assembly and the Senate of Pakistan passed the Bill but unfortunately President ArifAlvi on December 22, 2023 almost four months after passage of the bill refused to sign it and sent it back to the Parliament for ‘reconsideration.’
Now these teachers, mostly female teachers are awaiting the new Parliament to come into being after Feb 8, 2024 elections and pass the bill in the joint session.
In this regard, a delegation of wedlock teachers on Friday called on Madad Ali Sindhi and apprised him of their apprehensions that the FDE might repatriate them in the meanwhile.
The minister assured them no such thing would happen as the matter is with the Parliament.
Meanwhile, he sought details of all the teachers on wedlock working in Grade-14 & 15 as rules allowed their absorption. The minister was apprised that the President returned the Bill as there were Grade-16 and above teachers who could not be regularized without test and interview by the FPSC.
For the grade14 and 15 teachers however this was not required. Moreover, the teachers told the Minister they were qualified and had been performing their services to the entire satisfaction of the children their parents, the heads and the FDE. The minister said he didn’t have any doubt in their eligibility as they were imparting education for several years.
I am surprised why these teachers despite the fact the rules allowed it were not regularized in Islamabad’s schools when the FDE schools are already short of teachers, he said.
Madad Ali Sindhi said that teachers that have served in the capital for more than 20 years through the wedlock policy will be regularized. He said that these teachers have spent numerous years in FDE and Islamabad and hence should be accommodated
Let the Parliament decide in due course of time but we will honour those who have spent years in educating our children and doing a great service to Islamabad, he said.
