LAHORE, Oct 27: Around 200 special education teachers staged a protest demonstration in front of the Lahore Press Club on Tuesday, accusing the government of not fulfilling its duties and extending facilities to them.

The protesters, while holding placards and shouting anti-government slogans, demanded that the government stops their “economic murder”. They were of the view that the Punjab government should accept them and agree on providing quality education to disabled children, similar to other provinces.

They added that since the devolution of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Special Education to the provinces, the Punjab government had not accepted them.

Three Special Education Complexes had previously been working under the federal ministry in Punjab, which were now running under the Punjab government. 16 special education centres were working under those three complexes and only 40 teachers were available there to teach more than 3,000 disabled children. Scale 2 attendants that are incapable of imparting education to the special children accompany these teachers. Talking to Daily Times, senior teacher Muhammad Hafeez said that after the devolution of Ministry of Social Welfare and Special Education under the 18th Amendment, all the provinces had accepted the teachers except the Punjab government.

He said that all the contract employees were being regularised under the prime minister’s executive order whereas the employees in Punjab had not even been given salaries since June. The protesters demanded the CM to give them their due salaries at the earliest.

Source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk