Teachers demand time scale
Islamabad : Federal Directorate of Education on Thursday notified the grant of higher Time Scale (HTS) of 81 lecturers of Federal Government colleges Islamabad. According to notification, 33 male and 48 female lecturers of BPS-17 has been granted HTS of BPS-18.
The Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) of Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training had recommended the HTS in its meeting held on January 19, 2021.
The notification ironically affirms that the HTS would be effective from January 19, 2021, instead of the eligibility date of each teacher according to his/her length of service which is the violation of time scale formula. The time scale formula illustrates that a BPS-17 teacher will get HTS of BPS-18 if he/she has served 5 years in BPS-17.
“It is ridiculous that a lecturer who joined the education department in 2007 is being granted the HTS with a lecturer who joined the department in 2016,” pointed out a lecturer of Islamabad Model College for Girls (Postgraduate) G-10/4.
She wondered what this time scale was if it was negating the ‘time’ itself.
“It means serving for years and years and having a later entry into service cadre have the same yardstick.”
She regretted that this is the violation of time scale formula and a huge loss of the teachers who were eligible for the grant of HTS in 2013.
A lecturer at Islamabad Model College for girls (Postgraduate) F-7/2 lamented and expressed that the cases of teachers whose contract service was regularised in 2011 had been deferred even after they had fulfilled the required length of service for HTS.
“The Ministry of Federal education is seeking advice from establishment division for the grant of HTS to them. It is very unfortunate that after 10 years of their regularization, their HTS cases are being lingered on. What our country badly needs is good and efficient administration. Such simple issues are not being understood and pre-calculated and mended at such a high level is beyond my understanding,” she said.
Professor Tahir Mahmood of the Federal Government College Teachers Association urged the authorities to rectify the time scale notification and grant the HTS to the teachers from their eligibility dates to prevent the opening of a new Pandora Box of litigation.
He urged the authorities for early convening of another meeting of DPC to review all the deferred HTS cases.
Article source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/796323-teachers-demand-time-scale