Teachers regret lack of appreciation

Islamabad : No one raised a hand when Arshad Ali, a government college lecturer, asked his students how many of them wanted to become a teacher.

"The response of students was very disappointing," the teacher told 'The News' ahead of the Teachers Day.

Mr Arshad, who had formally become a teacher eight years ago, regretted that teaching had become an unattractive career, particularly in Islamabad.

“Good teachers leave the education department and join other departments as they don’t receive recognition for their contribution, and feel unappreciated. The teachers who feel underpaid also feel underappreciated and start looking for the better job elsewhere,” he said.

A teacher of a girls college said the Teachers Day was marked in other countries as the day to honor teachers as nation builders but there was no recognition of the services of teachers in Pakistan.

“There is no formal programme or function on this important day. Even the education minister is not here to celebrate this day. The place of the teacher in our society has forgotten,” she said.

A leader of the Federal Government College Teachers Association said the status of Islamabad's teachers in terms of promotion structure was much lower than their contemporaries in provinces especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.

He said bureaucracy had created restrictive work environments that left teachers feeling stressed, anxious and unable to perform well in the classroom.

“The basic problem is the myopia of political leaders, who do not own and give due importance to public sector education. They send their children to well-endowed private schools,” he said.

The FGCTA leader said in the initial phase of their service, teachers quit or changed jobs more often than the employees of other departments did.

“Teachers usually look out for better career steps rather than stay loyal to the education department. The only way to make this profession attractive is to bring the status of the capital's teachers on a par with that of KP's where recently a five-tier promotion structure was introduced,” he added.