Evaluating performance: Monitors inducted to keep a check on schools

Education minister hands appointment letters to 225 monitors of 16 districts

KARACHI: In a bid to keep a check on the progress of schools and evaluate performance of teachers, the government has inducted 225 assistant monitors in 16 districts of the province.

The education and literacy department has set up a directorate of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) to maintain quality of education and progress of teachers. The M&E directorate has hired monitoring assistants of BPS-14 in each district for the purpose.

The appointment letters for the 225 monitoring assistants were handed over to them by education minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro on Tuesday at the Arts Council, Karachi.



The idea to hire these monitors was to ensure that staff and students are performing and schools are not just left at the mercy of staff.

"Monitors have been hired in terms of number of schools in the district," explained Khuhro, adding that each monitor will be handling 120 schools.

Briefing the monitors regarding their duties, the senior minister said they have to visit each school every month and keep a record of attendance of teachers, facilities and enrolment.

"The monitors will have to make a report by the end of the month and submit it to the M&E department," said Khuhro. The report will be processed further in the department in terms of complaints, actions and punishments.

He also revealed that to facilitate monitors and avoid any excuses, the department will also provide them with a mobile phone for updates via pictures and a motorcycle to easily visit the schools. "The motorcycles will have trackers installed in them to monitor the monitors," he said.

The newly-appointed monitors were tested, interviewed and recruited by the Institute of Business Administration, it was revealed.

The 16 districts in which monitors will start working include Dadu, Hyderabad, Qamber Shahdakot, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas, Naushero Feroz, Karachi Central, Malir and East. Monitors will be inducted in the remaining 14 districts of Sindh by June this year, announced Khuhro.

The representative of the M&E directorate, during a presentation on how the monitors will update the department, informed that an android application has been formed titled Sindh School Management System. The application will be accessible to all the monitors with separate IDs and passwords to access data such as the number of schools, enrolment and facilities.

Each monitor has to evaluate the progress of the school keeping in view three main things: facilities such as toilets, boundary walls and water, attendance as per biometrics and enrolment; separately for boys and girls.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th,  2016.