Punjab teachers suspended amid protests against school privatization

In Punjab, key leaders from the union and association were suspended by the Punjab Department of Education for protesting a government plan to privatize another 15,000 schools by 2025. Presidents and general secretaries were issued show-cause notices while legal proceedings have been initiated against several activists, including Qazi Imran Malik, Amjad Akhyan, Gul, and Raja Taimoor Akhtar.

The government actions provoke the teachers to protest through locking up schools and thereby putting a halt on the teaching system in all government institutions. The Chief Executive of the Education Authority has warned teachers to end their strike and return to work immediately.

The teachers’ organizations are outright in their opposition to this privatization move and have even scheduled a convention of the Grand Teachers Alliance to prepare for more aggressive protests. In all, the Punjab government plans to transfer 13,219 schools to private management and aims to hand over the third round of privatization of another 2,903 schools.

At the end of this process, the Punjab will have only 35,000 state-run schools directly administered by public authority. Under severe criticism over her privatization drive, the Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz has been trying to defend it with an assertion that privatization will bring better conditions and performance in school. However, this process is still strongly opposed by teachers, among whom there is a belief that privatization endangers the quality of education and security at job.

The education department of Punjab is hitting a record low in admission rate. The first phase of the admission drive has been pretty dismal, and the second phase that opened after summer vacations on August 15 has also borne the same fruits.