ISLAMABAD, April 12: As many as 456 of the contractual and daily wage teachers in the basic pay scale (BPS) 16 and 17 in the federal capital are still waiting for regularisation of their services, it has been learnt.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani’s announcement on January 5, 2011, that all contractual employees would be regularised had given a new hope to these teachers.

Later the same year, the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) started the process of regularising the teachers on the basis of seniority. Official sources said so far all the BPS-16 teachers who joined the department before September 11, 2006, had been regularised. As far as teachers in BPS-17 are concerned, those hired by August 22, 2007, have been regularised while all others joining the department after that day are in the waiting list.

Officials also said the FDE was expecting that by the end of this week about 100 more teachers would submit their particulars for regularisation.

A source in the FDE requesting not to be named said initially it was decided that teachers who had completed one-year contractual service or three spells of 89 days each by December 31, 2011, would be regularised. Later, however, the facility was extended to all those who met the criterion till February 29, 2012.

“Because of the new decision, we once again sought data from all the educational institutions and so far have received almost 95 per cent data. As soon as we get the remaining information, it will be sent it to the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD),” he said.

About the teachers in BPS 16, he added that there were 195 junior lady teachers working in the model schools and 61 in the federal government colleges. “Almost 90 per cent contractual and daily wage teachers in BPS-16 are females,” the official said.“There are 192 females who have been working in BPS-17 on contractual or daily wage basis. Out of these, 173 are in model colleges and 19 in the federal government colleges. Besides, 53 male daily-wage teachers are also working in different colleges,” he said.

One of the teachers said she had been working for the last three years and was at the edge of promotion. However, she added: “Now we are being told that new vacancies will have to be created for our regularisation.”

She added: “We are worried because if our services are not regularised within a few months, the election campaign will be started and after that no one will get time to look into our issue. It is also a fact that only the PPP government has the reputation of regularising the services of its employees. If some other party comes to power, it might even start downsising.”Spokesman for Federal Government College Teachers Association Professor Tahir Mehmood said the association was struggling to get the services of all the teachers regularised.

When contacted, Joint Secretary CADD Prof Rafique Tahir said it has been decided that all the contractual teachers would be regularised. “Head of the cabinet committee Syed Khursheed Shah has been taking personal interest in resolving the issue and as soon we get the data of the teachers, it will be forwarded for creation of new posts so that services of the teachers will be regularised,” he said.