Attacks on Teachers

I was following the stories of the recent conflict of interest between the government school teachers of Sindh and the provincial government that was later resulted in the violent behaviour of police towards school teachers. There are no words left to condemn the police attacks on the teachers’ protest in Karachi. In this context, I totally agree with views of the writer expressed in the editorial entitled ‘Teachers’ Protest’ appeared in Dawn (May 28).

Educators, like other independent citizens of the society have right to peacefully protest and pursue their demands but this should not be done at the cost of children’s education. If there are some issues between the teachers and the government; both the parties should sit and talk in order to resolve the matter. The priority should be given to the common national interest that there should be the improvement of the education standards in our country.

Furthermore, a group of students allegedly beat up a professor in the University of Peshawar few days ago for refusing to admit their colleague in a Masters course because he did not qualify the basic admission criteria. This is not the first time when a miscreant group of students showed the violent attitude towards teachers. Previously same incident occurred at the University of Karachi when few students displayed this extreme shameful act of hitting the lecturer.

We need to realize that teachers are the social engineers of any society who build up and shape the personalities of future leaders. By such attacks on those sacred bodies, what societal values are we portraying at the global level? In order to denounce such attempts some strict measures are needed to be ensured at the official as well as individual level. The nation which does not value its educators and scholars can never progress and prosper and having weak education statistics we can’t afford to display such lenient approach towards these disrespectful actions.