Islamabad’s D-Chowk turned into a battlefield as dozens of teachers of federal educational institutions started to march towards the Parliament House to press for their demands on Thursday.
They staged a protest against the government’s decision to put the federal capital’s educational institutions under the Municipal Corporation Islamabad through the Local Government Ordinance, 2021.
The teachers and the security forces scuffled when the protesters were stopped from marching forward. However, the protesters reached in front of the Parliament House by removing the barriers.
They also chanted slogans against the incumbent government and demanded to withdraw its decision. We will continue the protest until acceptance of our demands, the teachers vowed.
Educational activities in all federal government institutions were suspended due to the protest.
On Wednesday, the Federal Directorate of Education’s joint action committee had said that the government has repeatedly ignored their demands and continued to play with the education system. They had further said that they will not allow the educational institutions to go on the path of destruction, although they know that the protest is affecting the education of students.
This ordinance, besides explaining other functions of the local government, says in Section 166 that the mayor would be the reporting officer of the director general of the Federal Directorate of Education.
The FDE regulates all 390 schools of the federal capital and under the ordinance the directorate would be devolved to the local government – a step which is not acceptable to teachers and non-teaching staff, who have been stating that it would be beyond the capacity of the mayor and local government to deal with the FDE as it requires an annual budget of around Rs20 billion.
