Rawalpindi: As part of the ongoing protest against selling government schools to private owners and teacher layoffs, government school teachers in Rawalpindi Division’s six districts closed down all public schools on Monday at the Grand Teachers Alliance’s request.
The teachers held rallies and protests on Saturday to demand that demands be fulfilled. Early in the morning, students were sent home, and the educational process was halted entirely.
The striking teachers staged an extensive protest march. They declared that they would boycott all aspects of the educational process, including exams, and that the anti-dengue campaign would be stopped until their demands were approved. The protest leaders said they would not permit the Punjab government’s plan to lay off millions of teachers and non-teaching employees, which would force their families into poverty.
The big protest rally was held after the boycott and lockdown, with male and female teachers and clerical personnel marching from Liaquat Bagh to Murree Road. Grand Teachers Alliance leaders, including Malik Amjad, Basharat Iqbal Raja, Akhian Gul, Hamid Ali Shah, and Qazi Imran, were leading the protest march.
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The Teachers’ Needs Assessment Test (TNAT), teacher layoffs, and the privatization of public schools were all topics of the banners and placards held by the participants. A large number of female teachers attended the rally.
The rally marched from the Press Club to Liaquat Bagh and then to the Education Office. Leaders attacked the Chief Minister of Punjab in their speeches, claiming that her policies had paralyzed the whole educational system.
They said, “The sale of government schools would be disastrous, which will result in school closures, a massive increase in fees, and close the doors of education for children from poor families.”
They also warned that a rise in unemployment will impact the crime rate. In addition to hiring instructors for open jobs, they requested that the government stop privatizing government schools. For an hour, the protest caused all traffic on Murree Road to be entirely stopped.
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However, the teachers have rejected the show-cause notices and suspensions. In response, the Education Department took disciplinary measures against the teachers’ leaders, firing and suspending them under the PEDA Act. They have also begun to call for a personal hearing to dismiss them.
The All Pakistan Clerks Association, meanwhile, protested and went on strike against school privatization. Clerical leaders Raja Aftab, Shehzad Manzoor Kiyani, Chaudhry Mubashir, and Mirza Tauqeer declared that they would not stop protesting until their demands were fulfilled, which has put the administrative structure in the offices of educational institutions in a state of complete paralysis.