Teachers protest for raise in salary Bahria Foundation School

Teachers of Bahria Foundation School protest for raise in salary
Rawalpindi: After waiting for nine to ten years for salary increase and up-gradation, 90 teachers of Westridge branch of Bahria Foundation School junior and senior branches, forced at the hands of poverty and price-hike, decided to go on strike while the administration was not ready to listen to their demands and blocked their way to enter the premises.
More than 90 teachers of all the four branches of Westridge branch of Bahria Foundation School junior and senior branches here on Tuesday demanded for the raise in their pay-scale as their salary is not enough to meet the prevalent price-hike.
The teachers said that the government has increased 50% salaries of the government employees and Bahria Foundation being a semi-government organisation should increase the salary by 30% at least. The teachers started their strike on Friday, the students were abruptly given off on Monday morning and were sent to their homes at around 9.30 a.m.
All the teachers were not allowed to enter the college premises for an hour on Tuesday, as the administration was not ready to listen to their demands. The teachers said all of them are educated people and conducting peaceful protest for salary rise. The teachers who are working for the last nine or ten years were given no incentives and substantial increment. Moreover these were fined in case they were late even for a minute.
“Till now we have not been issued any service card, we want our salary packages to be revised, furthermore, we should be notified of our yearly raise. There is no differentiation between the raise and increment. We are not given our pay scale slips as the salary comes in our account. Everything should be documented and notified to us. There are even classrooms without fans in which children suffer due to tremendous heat.
There is no standby generator or UPS installed for the classes. There are other problems also like there is no staff room for the teachers, no library for children and children are also denied any recreational facility. How can we work under such conditions. Children are not allowed to do any function and no Eid Milan parties are allowed, even the Annual Day is not celebrated, no trophies are given to the students on their tremendous achievements.
Even all the teachers are called in summer and winter vacations and have to work accordingly. Vacations remuneration is paid on daily wages, which is reimbursed till February or March. Teachers who have done MSc are working on mere Rs8,000. When the parents are charged around Rs3,000 per child why can’t they pay us handsome salaries. Moreover, no experience certificates are given to us after leaving the job. We are pressurised by different means to discontinue our strike. Until and unless our demands are met, we will continue our strike,” the teachers said.
When we tried to meet Principal Bahria Foundation College Commodore (r) Mohammad Younis he denied to talk to this scribe.
Director Education and Training Bahria Foundation Khan Akbar said that their head office is in Karachi and all the policies are formulated there. We are only following their rules here.
“Teachers delegation is here and we are sorting the matter out. When we induct the teachers in Bahria Foundation we pay them according to their pay scale categories. Fifty per cent of our income goes to Naval Headquarters. There are 15 stages of pay scale packages and teachers are paid according to the budget. We have to meet other expenses like rent and teachers salary also.