Teachers Great Victory - Widerstand der Lehrer erfolgreich

Am 8.August gab General Musharaf bekannt, dass die Regierungspläne zur Privatisierung des Schulwesens in Pakistan eingefroren würden. Damit ist der landesweite Widerstand der Lehrerinnen und Lehrer - in dessen Verlauf mehrere Hundert von ihnen verhaftet wurden - mit Unterstützung der Gewerkschaften und der linken Parteien erfolgreich gewesen. Nachfolgend eine offizielle Pressemitteilung (englisch) von Raja Mehboob Hussain, Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (Vereinigung der Lehrer und Dozenten von Punjab) und Farooq Tariq, Labor Party Pakistan

Teachers Great Victory

The movement paid back. The military government of General Musharaf declared on 8th August 2002 that the notified denationalization of the educational institutions would not take place. The meeting between the representatives of the teachers community and the Governor of Punjab general Khalid Maqbool on resulted in the declaration of the taking back the decision to denationalize and autonomies the educational institutions.

The notification by the Punjab government issued on 8th July 2002 sparked an immediate movement of the teachers across Punjab. In a 30 days struggle of teachers saw a historic victory. 8 public meetings were organized only in Lahore while all the other districts of Punjab also saw teachers on the streets demanding an end of denationalization. In Lahore, police charged all the main leaders of the Joint Action Committee Teachers Punjab, an umbrella organization of the teachers union from Left to Right wing.

On 29th July 2002, over 200 teachers were arrested in Lahore while they were trying to enter a girls college premises for a protest meeting. They included the women teachers who made headlines the next day across Pakistani media as the teachers were brutally mishandled by the police while arresting them..

This incident sparked an outrage among the general masses and there was a widespread support for the demands of the teachers among the public.

Almost all the political parties including the trade unions and civil society organizations supported the teachers. An All Parties Conference organized by Labor Party Pakistan on 26th July declared a full support for the Teachers and assured the striking teachers of their solidarity and joining hands in the movement. Almost all the Left groups also declared the support for the teachers.

The government notice on 8th July was a tricky strategy by the Bureaucracy of educational intuitions as these were days of summer holidays. The choosing of this date meant for them that teachers on holidays would not start any immediate movement. But on the contrary the teachers abandoned their holidays to start an unprecedented movement of the community.

Looking at the prospect of spreading the movement to other areas of Pakisrtan, the military government decided to take a step back at the Moment to cool down the ever growing sentiments of the people. If the military would have gone ahead of the plans, then the education would have been an other area where most of the working class families would not think to take it serious.

By Raja Mehboob Hussain
Information secretary
Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association

Farooq Tariq
General secretary
Labor Party Pakistan