Islamia Ghat girls’ school: Officers fail to submit inquiry report

Education director had given three days to probe issue on September 24

SUKKUR: Sukkur’s education officers seem quite indifferent towards the complaints of the headmistress of Government Girls High School Islamia Ghat, as indicated by their failure to submit an inquiry report. The headmistress had alleged that she was being harassed by the teachers’ union office bearers and teachers. Sukkur’s education director Abdul Aziz Hakro had constituted a three-member inquiry committee on September 24 to probe the issue and submit a report within three days but no report has been submitted despite the lapse of nine days.

On September 20, the headmistress, Fahmida Jabeen Abro, had written a letter to the education director about a ghost teacher, Ambreen Afzal, who has been absent since 2009. She also accused Government School Teachers’ Association Sukkur chapter president Shahzad Abbasi of forcibly entering the school, misbehaving and threatening to shut down the institute.

Hakro said he had been on leave for the past four days, so it was possible that the committee had actually completed its report but he had not yet received it. “Abbasi has been ordered by the education secretary to report to the education and literacy secretariat,” he said. As far as other troublemaking teachers are concerned, they will be shifted to other schools as per Abro’s recommendation, he explained.

Sukkur commissioner Mohammad Abbas Baloch said that the education secretary had appointed additional education secretary Mohammad Nawaz Suho as inquiry officer but he has been transferred. “The education secretary called me and asked me to conduct inquiry into the matter therefore I have directed the Sukkur deputy commissioner to appoint his additional deputy commissioner as inquiry officer,” he explained.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2016.