• Two PTI senators also oppose move
• Minister assures house no step to be taken that harms education sector
• Senator Ijaz Chaudhry says salaries, pensions of employees to be handled by ministry

ISLAMABAD: The voice of protesting teachers echoed in the Senate after the joint opposition expressed its resentment over the government’s move to place educational institutions in Islamabad under the purview of the mayor.

The opposition members were also joined by two key members of the treasury benches — senators Faisal Javed Khan and Kamil Ali Agha.

The federal government had recently gotten the Local Government Ordinance 2021 passed, under which the federal capital’s schools would be regulated by the yet-to-be-elected mayor instead of the education ministry.

The teaching and non-teaching employees of educational institutions run by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) opposed the move and staged two protests outside the Parliament House and boycotted classes for one week.

The protesting teachers were of the view that running educational institutions was beyond the capacity of the local government as an amount of over Rs20 billion was required annually to manage them, adding that there was no justification to delink the FDE schools from the education ministry.

The Upper House took up the teachers’ issue on a motion jointly moved by Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) Senator Mushtaq Ahmad and Kamran Murtaza of the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), which questioned the rationale behind the decision without taking stakeholders into confidence.

PTI Senator Faisal Javed Khan sought clarification on how the vacuum thus created would be filled until the new local government started working.

Senator Kamil Ali Agha, meanwhile, termed the placing of educational institutions under the local government system a possible trick of private schools that might be eyeing about 250,000 students of government schools.

He rejected the ordinance and said if placing schools under the mayor was imperative, “let the system first start functioning and show positive results in other areas before going ahead with the decision”.

The motion’s mover, Senator Mushtaq Ahmad, said the parliament was bypassed by the government and the decision regarding educational institutions was taken through an ordinance, adding that this step reminded of the colonial area.

“How could educational institutions be placed under a municipality, that too which was yet to be formed, Mr Ahmad said, adding that, it seems, “it [government] wants to gradually privatise all educational institutions, which are running excellently”.

Kamran Murtaza requested the house to play its role to prevent the government from taking the step and save the future of 250,000 students and 14,000 teachers and non-teaching staff.

Senator Irfan Siddiqui, who is also the Senate Standing Committee on Federal Education chairman, said the government had made the education sector a laughing stock through this ordinance.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan assured the house that the government would not take any step that would prove harmful to the education system.

The matter is being discussed in standing committees of both houses and all those concerned will be taken into confidence, Mr Khan said.

PTI Senator Ijaz Chaudhry, however, clarified that the salaries and pensions of educational institutions’ employees would rest with the education ministry and not handled by the local government.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2021