PESHAWAR: All Primary Teachers Association (APTA) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Vice President Noor Habib Khan demanded federal and provincial governments to increase salaries and pension of its employees by 40 percent, on Wednesday.
He said, “We demand the federal and KPK governments to increase the salaries of BPS 1-16 employees up to 40 percent and of BPS 17 and above employees by 20 percent in the upcoming 2016-17 budget keeping in view high inflation, low per capita income of low grade employees and high prices of daily commodities”. The teachers were unable to construct a room for their family during 10 years due to their low income and salaries and time has come to take practical steps for their economic empowerment, he added.
Noor is also a leader of All Teachers Coordination Council KPK. He said that huge allocation in the budget for education sector was required to address the problem of missing facilities like washrooms, boundary walls, and furniture in the public sector schools in the province besides addressing the long awaited problems of teacher’s community. “Education is the largest department and has more needs than any other department. All departments have maximum five rooms in any union council but education department has 70 rooms in every union council school and need 10 more rooms every year,” he added.
The dream of producing quality manpower and bringing government schools at par with private schools would only be materialized education budget is significantly increased and enhanced facilities are provided to the teachers. “We have postponed our protest call that was given for today (May 25) following assurance by the KPK Minister for Education and authorities that our demands including provision of time scale, teaching allowance and restoration of teachers son quota will be addressed,” he said.
