Most of the private schools in Pakistan are not paying salaries to their teachers since the lockdown has come into effect and schools are closed due to the fear of the spread of coronavirus.
Headstart School System, Islamabad has declined to pay wages to school teachers for the month of April, 2020 despite collecting hefty fees from parents. The teachers are teaching children online and have also been going to school off and on for various assignments however owing to greed of money the school management is unwilling to pay them their respective salaries. Foregoing in view, it is requested that the school management may please be directed to pay all the dues of school teachers and strict action be taken against them for this malpractice.
Government has allowed the private schools to keep the schools open for first five days of month for fee collection, but they have not been made bound to pay salaries to teachers.
A teacher in a Headstart School System told Dailytimes that the owner of school. “She will surely defend by telling you one story or other but fact is that in Ramzan with eid ahead the school management despite getting fees, not paying electricity bills, gas bills and allied expanditures are not paying wages of deserving teachers”.
Lockdown has badly impacted private educational institutions. He said four branches of his institution have paid salaries of the previous months to the whole staff, but they may not be able to sustain this pressure the next month if the lockdown continued. He said private educational institutions cannot pay salaries to employees without receiving fee from students.
On April 6, on the instructions of Education Minister Saeed Ghani, the directorate had issued a notification and made it mandatory for the administrators of all private schools and intermediate colleges to grant 20 per cent concession in tuition fees for the months of April and May.
