Treasury MPAs slam lack of educational progress

Say there is an urgent need to address lack of teachers

LAHORE: The treasury benches seemed dissatisfied with the Punjab government’s performance when it came to providing better education facilities as there were several institutions lacking teachers, classrooms and adequate infrastructure.

Higher Education Parliamentary Secretary Mehwish Sultana made efforts to satisfy the legislators, but the MPAs continued to slam the poor situation at educational institutions. Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan referred three questions to committees concerned and sought a report.

The house started over an hour late at 11:12 instead of the scheduled time was of 10am. Opposition legislator Muhammad Arif Abbasi protested in front of the speaker over the absence of the education minister. He claimed everyone could gauge the government’s resolve to end the education crisis by the fact that the relevant minister was missing in action. He pointed out that questions related to the education sector were part of the agenda.

As the question answer session got underway, PML-N legislator Mian Tariq Mehmood asked the government of the criteria to fulfill vacant posts of teachers. He went on to say there was a dearth of teachers at degree colleges for girls and boys.

Responding, the parliamentary secretary Mehwish Sultana said there were 22 posts in government boys’ degree college against which five teachers were teaching. She claimed that college teacher interns (CTI) were being appointed to tackle the situation. In girls’ degree colleges, there were six teachers against 19 posts.

Mehmood expressed his gloom over the situation, saying the future of children would be at stake if the situation remained the same.

Another PML-N legislator, Al-Hajj Muhammad Ilyas Chinioti, said the government had failed to fill the vacant posts of teachers at the postgraduate level. The parliamentary secretary responded that 26 was the number of sanctioned posts over the last 30 years in girls’ colleges of Chiniot and 10 of these were vacant.

PML-N legislator Haji Imran Zafar joined the conversation by asking about the insufficient number of teachers and classrooms in Gujrat’s government collages. Zafar also seemed dissatisfied with the answers of the parliamentary secretary who claimed Rs120 million had been allocated, out of which Rs5 million had been released. He added the rest of the amount would be released soon.

Jamaat-e-Islami legislator Dr Waseem Akhtar asked the government if there was a mechanism to stop the fining of financially-disadvantaged students who deposited late fee. He added a student was fined Rs4,000 for submitting late fee, while the total is Rs13,550.

The parliamentary secretary stated that the matter of defaulters had been referred to the syndicate of the university and would be resolved in the coming month. She said Rs4,000 was fined after a month of the due date otherwise Rs.1000 was fined for late fee.

PML-N’s Mian Muhammad Rafique legislator challenged the answer of the department, saying the claim of the demand for further class rooms being sent to the department concerned was a lie.

Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal rejected the claim, saying nobody tells a lie n the house. Rafique replied by asking if it was justified that there were 41 class rooms for 2,610 students.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2018.