Teaching in the federal capital, insult personified

Qualification: Masters, Status: Daily-wage basis

The teacher can be rightly called a nation builder. Teachers through their perseverance, love and sacrifices have shown us the right path in which great men have built our nation.

It is a teacher who moulds the character and personality of individuals who combine to make a nation. These nation builders are being maltreated, exploited and not being given their rights as many of them in all the 22 ‘Model colleges’ of Islamabad have been working on daily wages.

There are plenty of teachers with Masters Degrees who have been held in reserve in the colleges for teaching in these institutes and they get as low as a sweeper gets in these institution i.e. Rs8000 per month.

While Talking to INFN, Muhammad Usman a mathematic teacher said,” I have been teaching in Islamabad Model College of Islamabad for the last 6 years and getting Rs 7000-8000 hardly. Almost all the teachers teaching in these colleges are on daily wages and they are not respected as a teacher but they have been made a labourer which is very disappointing. We seek for admiration and respect. No one could think of working on these debasing terms.”

The teachers in these colleges cannot avail more than one leave after a fortnight; in fact, in some of the colleges they can barely take one day leave in the whole month. In several if the teacher pulls out the leave beyond a day then he might be get expelled. There are number of senior teachers who have been working in these institutes for more than 20 years but failed to win the respect they are worthy of.

Often it happens that the aged and senior teachers are bullied by the young boys. They are made a subject of joke. Such awful behaviour of the students is unacceptable and disappointing for them. But the students are unharmed even after a compliant is lodged with the administration as they are thought of ‘lesser teachers’ and even ‘lesser humans’ by the principals.

These institutes and government need to re-consider these issues. There must adopt a sagacious policy based on principles for these teachers. They must be provided with pension by the end of their job and their salary must be increased with the passage of time. Monetary benefits apart, they ask for esteem and dignity from the students and the college administration.