Caught in the middle: Students bear the brunt as education dept clashes with former minister

The 'temporary' teaching staff at a renovated school in Peerano Goth is not receiving salaries.

KARACHI: Around 150 students in Peerano Goth are likely to bear the brunt of a clash between the Sindh education department and former provincial education minister Pir Mazharul Haq.

In the suburban village of Bin Qasim Town, the Government Primary School is the lone education facility - and it, too, had been left abandoned for over a decade until a company decided to rebuild it in 2011 as a gesture of community support.

An agreement was subsequently signed between the Nestlé Pakistan and the Sindh education department under which the latter agreed to provide the necessary staff for teaching and maintenance of the facility once the former restored the facility with furniture, toilet blocks and classrooms.



In less than a year, the multinational food and beverage company had fulfilled its commitment in the form of a beautifully reconstructed edifice. The school was inaugurated by Haq along with company's managing director Magdi Batato on October 24, 2012, amidst the beaming faces of children who thought they had a school to attend.

However, more than two years after the inauguration, the Sindh education department has yet to fulfil its end of the deal. It is now headed by another Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stalwart, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, who replaced Haq after the general elections of 2013.

Haq, who is also a member of PPP's central executive committee, has now accused the hierarchy of the provincial education department of an 'irresponsible attitude' and 'harbouring a rivalry' with him.

Haq explained that during his tenure, the teaching staff was deputed through the Karachi directorate of school education for a temporary period till the government appointed permanent teachers at the school. "It is shocking to know that the education department stopped paying their salaries after a few months, though they have been discharging their responsibilities for around two years now," said Haq after the residents of the area and the deputed teachers approached him on Friday to share the details of the issue. "On the contrary, the teachers were told to obtain their salaries from the former education minister [Haq]."

Haq asked the Sindh chief minister, Qaim Ali Shah, to tell the aggrieved people and their children whether it had not been the same PPP government in power when the school was opened or if Haq himself had now become a leader of the opposition.

However, the Karachi director of school education, Abdul Wahab Abbasi, on behalf of the Sindh education department told The Express Tribune said that the teachers who failed to receive their salaries may not have been deputed through the proper channels. "We have been coping with the issue of thousands of illegally appointed teachers during the last few years," said Abbasi, adding that the education department would soon appoint permanent teachers at the school.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2014.