KARACHI: Nearly 100 students, teachers and administrative staff of the Pak-Turk schools in Karachi gathered outside the Karachi Press Club on Thursday to protest against the government`s decision to send their Turkish teachers back.

`They have just given our teachers three days to leave the country,` said a student, adding that their Turkish teachers had given them a good education, confidence and much more. `I can`t believe they are being asked to pack up and leave.

A girl from Turbat, Balochistan, who is the first girl from her family to travel to Karachi for an education, said she was very upset over the government`s decision.

`I am a second year student and hope to become an engineer one day. I don`t know how it will be possible if my teachers are forced to leave. My parents sent me here to study after they saw an advertisement in the paper about the Pak-Turk schools four years ago,` she said.

`I live in the hostel and so far my experience has been very good. There is no education or emphasis on education in Balochistan.

It will be a great injustice to us, she said, if the government forces these amazing teachers to leave our country. `It will have a negative effect on our education and future,` she added.

Maliha Raza, a teacher at the Pak-Turk school in Gulshani-Iqbal, said that about seven to eight women Turl(ish teachers from her branch had been told to leave. `At our Jauhar and Clifton branches, the male staff (Turkish teachers) has been told to leave, I think around 15 in total,` she said.

`These people are good peo-ple with big hearts who are providing the students with a good quality education. If they leave the country, it will be a very bad setback for our children.

`The literacy rate in Pakistan is so low,` said Ms Raza, who has been with the school for two years. `Why would you want to send away people who are working to improve your country?` Filza Ali, another student, was shouting slogans with her classmates. `We are protesting because the government just decided to send our Turkish teachers back,` said Ms Ali.

`These teacher made our future. They are closer to us than our family and friends, she said.

`One of the teachers who is leaving teaches us math -she`s leaving in the middle of the school year how will we cope? Will they be able to find a suitable replacement? Ourfuture is at stake,` she added.

`Why are they asking them to leave? Have they done anything wrong? They are educating us, teaching us to become better people,` said a student from Dadu.

`Where I come from in the interior of Sindh the government has not provided anything for our education. I moved here to study and have learnt so much,` said Muzamil Hameed Kolhoro, a second year student.

Another teacher, Tahira Adnan, who has been with the schools for three years, said that the Turkish teachers had really worked on building the students` confidence and encouraged them to think outside the box. `They take a specialinterest and extra care for the students who live at the hostel helped in building their character and also gave religious education,` she added.Both of Farhat Shahab`s daughters studied at a PakTurk school for 11 years and are now university students.

They came to the press club to fight for their former teachers` rights to stay in the country.

`My daughters, Rahat and Aliza, studied and graduated from this school,` said Ms Shahab, while her daughters and friends were shouting slogans against the deportation of Turkish teachers.

According to Ms Shahab, her girls had a wonderful time at the school and `we had a good relationship with the association, teachers and other parents`.

`The Turl(ish teachers have taught them so well that it would be unfair to send them back,` she said, adding that the school and Turkish teachers had done something good for her children and she would like other students to benefit from them as well.