PESHAWAR: All Fata Teachers Association has threatened to boycott classes and stage protest demonstration after Eidul Azha if government fails to notify upgradation of its 16,000 members. Addressing a press conference at Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday, AFTA president Haji Khan Malik Mahmood said that the previous government had accepted their demands pertaining to upgradtion and promotion and initiated work on the plan because severalteachers got the incentives for several months.
However, Fata Secretariat stopped the incentives rather started recovery from the teachers, he said.
Flanked by teachers` leaders belonging to different tribal regions, Mr Mahmood said that the education secretary had issued directives about withdrawal of incentives from the teachers which caused serious unrest among the entire community. The teachers were ready to stage protest demonstrations, he added.
The AFTA president said that teachers had time and again requested the government and held meetings with the relevant officials to resolve their problems but it seemed that the government was least bothered to pay attention to their demands.
Mr Mahmood said that delay in acceptance of their demands created unrest among the tribal teachers.
He said that they were ready to stage protest demonstrations, sit-ins in Islamabad and boycott classes for indefinite period.
The AFTA president said that a notification about promotion of teachers was recently cancelled by Fata Secretariat for unknown reasons. About 16,000 teachers would be affected by the decision, he added.
He said that several cadres of teachers were ignored in the upgradation policy.
The poor teachers were deprived of the incentives for unknown reasons, he said and asked the government to stop exploiting schoolteachers, implement the upgradation plan and release all the incentives to them without any further delay.
Mr Mahmood also criticised the government for imposing restrictions on teacher unions in Fata and said that teachers would not accept any kind of ban on their associations. He said that teachers were ready to render all kinds of sacrifices for their rights and would not succumb to any government pressure.
The AFTA president said that Fata Secretariat should announce promotion and upgradation of teachers on the pattern of the teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
He urged the government to open all closed educational institutions in Fata and enable the students to get education at their doorsteps.
He said that government was also bound to reconstruct the destroyed buildings and repair the partially damaged schools.
