Silent schools, silent authorities & the absenteeism epidemic in district Sherani

In Sherani, teachers mark attendance but rarely show up, leaving students to navigate a broken education system alone.

Imagine walking into a school with classrooms closed, teachers absent and students busy in play. This situation is synonymous with the word Sherani, which is home to nearly 0.2 million residents, of whom 39.34 % are children under the age of 10.

During 2024, I visited ‘Government Public Middle School for Boys, Killi Nikkan’ multiple times to entreat teachers to ensure their presence. In every visit, I encountered students alone, saying that three out of eleven teachers come three days a week, that too between 10am and 12pm.

Ironically, all the teachers would have their attendance marked for all working days, from 8 am to 1 pm, reported the office boy, also the custodian of the attendance registers.

The school has functioned this way from 2010 onwards and no more than five students have made it past grade 8^th since.

Among the 101 enrolled students, the number of female students stands at 12. Unfortunately, the staff discourages girls from attending the school, reported the girls.

On top of that, no student can read two continuous sentences fluently in any language, let alone solve BODMAS or define Science.

Worryingly, this school is one of the twin middle schools in the entire Harifal tribe of the district, and it has nine villages in its proximity on 4-6 kilometers of distance.

Beside for this school, students from the adjacent villages have no other option to avail. Currently, only one student is enrolled from among these villages. After all, why would any parents send their child to a teacherless school?

On raising the issue of the teachers’ chronic absenteeism with the district education officer, he outrightly involved the office bearers of the teachers’ alliance. Not only did he give in to the pressure of the later but also persuaded me to backtrack and let the status quo prevail.

I reached out to the district commissioner a week before the winter vacations. She assured me of the proposed corrective measures and also assured me she would visit the school herself. Encouragingly, she also pointed out the authorities on the district level for their utter failure in sending teachers to schools.

This particular school presents a case study for those who are supposed to hold all absentee teachers accountable. The state of affairs from this school is reflects the state of all the schools in Sherani.

As per the 2023 Pakistan Bureau of Statistics report, Sherani’s literacy rate stands at 23.86 percent, the lowest in Baluchistan after district Kohlu.

The most proactive way to tackle the chronic absenteeism issue head-on is to empower villagers by creating parent-teacher meeting committees (PTMCs).

These committees should notify the district education office on a monthly basis, of the students’ progress, absenteeism, and other school related issues.

These committees should also report to and engage with the district education supervisors and officers, provincial authorities, and specifically the member of the provincial assembly from the district, if they ever happen to visit schools.

If acted upon, such coordinated actions may take on absenteeism. Since the responsibility of ensuring teachers’ presence squarely lies with District Education Officer, he should also be made accountable.

Without urgent action, another generation of children, especially girls, will be left behind in Sherani. Now is the time for real accountability.