QUETTA, Feb 11: Teachers recruited under the Aghaz-i-Huqooq-i-Balochistan Package called off their two-week hunger strike on Monday after district authorities assured them that their contractual jobs would be regularised.

Quetta Deputy Commissioner Abdul Mansoor Kakar visited the striking teachers’ camp outside the press club and informed them that their demand had been accepted.

According to official sources, Balochistan Governor Nawaz Zulfiqar Ali Magsi has approved the summary sent to him for the regularisation of teachers’ services.

The governor directed the Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD) to set up a committee to supervise the process of regularising the job of over 5,000 teachers, according to the summary.

The committee would be headed by an additional secretary of S&GAD and would comprise secretaries of finance, secondary education, and law. An officer of the deputy secretary level from the federal government would represent the Finance Division, Islamabad.

The secretary, secondary education, would submit district-wise details of teachers recruited in Grade 14 and 16 with credentials of their educational qualification within one week.

The committee after reviewing these details would begin the process of regularisation.

The provincial education department recruited over 5,000 teachers in July 2010 under the Balochistan package. The federal government was responsible for providing funds for their salaries for two years. After two years salaries were stopped with teachers fearing their services would be terminated.