LAHORE: The Punjab School Education Department (SED) has stopped the salaries of thousands of school teacher interns (STIs) recruited under a project of Insaf schools launched by the previous government of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).

The government has planned to bring out-ofschool children back to school and recruited thousandsofSTIsin2019,2020 and 2021.

The government started hundreds of schools and named them Insaf Schools and Insaf Afternoon Schools in 11 districts of the province. The government also has upgraded hundreds of primary schools to middle and middle to high and high to higher secondary in the province.

The government paid initial salaries to the STIs and stopped after conducting a third-party audit of the programme.

The report found malpractice in recruitment criteria and bad performance of the STIs. The report also mentioned the involvement of MPAs and MNAs in recruiting the STIs and also revealed that theschools failed to achieve their target of bringing children back to school.

A senior official on condition of anonymity told Dawn that the government was using Rs3 billion DFID funds to start the programme but stopped the salaries of the STIs on the report of the thirdparty audit report.

According to an SED notification available with Dawn, `The internees were hired on a fixed salary against sanctioned posts on the rates i.e.Rs30,000 for higher secondary, Rs25,000 for secondary, Rs20,000 for elementary and Rs18,000 for primary level`.

The notification directed the chief executive officers of the District Education Authorities to ensure the salaries to all STIs in their districts without delay which is the constitutional right of these employees. The families of the STIs are suffering badly due to non-payment of salaries.

STIs have been protesting for the last six months against the nonpayment of their several month`s salaries. They demanded that the government provide them salaries and also extend their contracts for the smooth running of the schools.