Thousands of teachers serving in hundreds of double-shift schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) have not received salaries for the past several months. The teachers are facing extreme difficulties in making ends meet.
According to details, KP’s Elementary and Secondary Education Department has not disbursed salaries to teachers of 1,443 double-shift schools in 27 districts of the province for the last five months.
The KP government had set up double-shift schools with the aim to enroll out-of-school children and ease some burden from already overcrowded public schools in the province.
Around 3,000 teachers were hired to serve these schools in March. The provincial government had allocated Rs. 110 million for these schools in settled districts and Rs. 35 million for schools in merged districts. They first teach students in the morning shift and then they teach students in the second shift as well.
Nearly 43,000 children are enrolled in these double-shift schools. Due to the non-payment of salaries to the teachers, the future of these children doesn’t appear bright.
One of the unpaid teachers said that most of them are also doing their M Phil and PhD in parallel with teaching. Without getting paid, it is extremely difficult to keep up the energy to teach the students.
Primary school teachers (PST) were hired at a fixed monthly salary of Rs. 22,000, class teachers (CT) at Rs. 25,000, secondary school teachers (SST) at Rs. 28,000, and subject specialists (SS) at Rs. 30,000.
The provincial government disbursed the salaries for March, April, and May in May. However, they are yet to receive the salaries for June, July, August, September, and October.
In September’s first week, a delegation of unpaid teachers met KP Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education, Shahram Khan Tarakai, who assured them that their salaries will be disbursed by the end of September. However, the teachers are yet to receive their salaries.
Via Dawn
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