TEACHER WOES – Teachers unhappy with schools’ administrations

Lahore – While government schools are known to be unable to satisfy their teachers, private school teachers of the relatively lower-middle-class schools have also started to complain that their schools’ administrations can not cater to their demands, Pakistan Today has learnt.
According to the teachers, administration of these schools exploits them, whereas nobody in the government was willing to take up the issue. They said that after retirement, there was no mechanism of pension and gratuity. They also claimed that there was no proper system of salary increment.
LOW PAID,
NO INCREMENTS: A private school teacher from New Muslim Town, seeking anonymity, told Pakistan Today that the private schools never followed any rules and exploited the abilities of the staff. He said there were some schools which merely paid Rs 2500 to 3500 as monthly salaries and hire under qualified teachers, having done matriculation or intermediate.
Owing to unavailability of quality jobs in the market, teachers were compelled to do low paid jobs in such institutes, whereas there was no check on the part of the government as well. He said the situation was worse in the city suburbs, where these schools delayed salaries for months. He said the teachers working for 15 years had to wait for the salary increment. There was also a lack of other facilities such as transport and medical facilities, he added
UNPAID SUMMER HOLIDAYS: Another teacher, a victim of these private schools, said there were schools which do not give salaries during summer holidays, whereas they force the students to deposit the three month fee in advance for these holidays. He said summer camps had been developed but teachers were not paid for summer camps and make-up classes. He said most of the teachers were forced to teach in academies and homes to make the ends meet.
MINIMUM WAGE RULE: All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association President Adeeb Javidani told Pakistan Today that minimum wage for the teachers should be Rs 7,000. He claimed that most of the schools followed the minimum wage rule. It was the responsibility of the government to ensure the implementation of the “employee agreement” rule of 1984’s ordinance, he added. He said his association has stressed all the private schools to give reasonable salaries to the teachers in order to ensure quality teaching.
AGREEMENT REQUIRED: According to the Punjab Private Educational Institutions (Promotion and Regulation) Rules 1984, Section 11 C, “The employees of the institutions are employed through written agreement.” Education Executive District Office Assistant Director of Administration Iqbal Hussain Kathia said there was no compulsion on the schools to give specific amount of salaries to the teachers, but they had to sign an agreement with the staff, while hiring.
TEACHERS PREFER ACADEMIES: A student who completed his studies in a local private school, Ahmad Farooq, said that he and his friends noticed that the teachers’ inclination have been diverted towards part time private academies than schools owing to the difference between salary packages. He said one of his teachers used to assign his own work to the students, he elaborated, “Our teacher used to give us the papers conducted in his academy in the class to check them.” He said that now even the parents were forced to send their children to the academies, as the quality of school education was on the low. He also said that the situation in the elite schools was much better.
Private schools never
follow any rules and exploit staff’s abilities. There are some schools which merely pay
Rs 2,500 to 3,500 monthly and hire under-qualified teachers
There is no compulsion on the schools to give specific amount of salaries to the teachers, but they have to sign an agreement with the staff, while hiring