Hundreds of teachers salaries not paid for seven months the Basic Education Community Schools Project

Hundreds of teachers not paid for seven months
Karachi:A young Afsheen Ali, who teaches children under an informal programme, is wondering whether she should continue her job or quit. And not without a reason.

For seven months now, hundreds of teachers like Ms Ali, who are educating children under the Basic Education Community Schools Project, have been deprived of their salaries.

The Basic Education Community Schools Project, a scheme of the federal government’s National Education Department, is running 350 single-room schools in the city, imparting free education from Montessori to Grade 5.

Ms Ali, who teaches a class of 60 students at her home in Landhi, shared her grievances with The News.

“This project seems to have been abandoned by the high-ups, and we are running the show on our own. For several months we have not received any salaries and neither have our children any textbooks.”

And when Ms Ali and her colleagues informed the programme officials about the non-payment of their salaries for the last many months, the official expressed their helplessness and said they could not do anything as there were no funds available.

“The government should come out with a clear statement on what they plan to do with the project. It started in 2006 and was supposed to end by 2010, but no termination orders have yet been given,” she said.

Nozaina Jahanzeb, who, along with another teacher, teaches a class of 160 students in Musharraf Colony, said, “Even though the salaries are not much, yet our livelihoods are dependent on them.”

Showing a letter she had written to the Sindh Minister for Education, Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq, Ms Jahanzeb pointed out that the minister had directed the secretary of education to redress their grievances, but the order had become redundant since the secretary had resigned.The news