Pindi’s schools face dearth of teachers

Around 350 teachers have applied for early retirement

RAWALPINDI: Recent decisions of the Punjab education ministry regarding the rationalisation of teachers and handing over affairs of educational institutions to local bodies has resulted in several disgruntled teachers in the district applying for early retirement, creating a potential dearth of teachers.

Government-run schools in the Rawalpindi division have been struggling with an insufficient number of teachers and staff with as many as 1,031 seats for teachers in schools of all categories, including primary, middle, high and higher secondary, lying vacant.

Despite terming education to be a priority, the PTI government has failed to recruit new teachers against these posts in the past year. The vacancies, though, have been unfilled for the past two years. Some of the vacancies are for the top administrative positions in schools with some 116 boys’ schools and 111 girls’ schools going without permanent headmasters or headmistresses. As a result, apart from affecting the quality teaching offered in schools, the administrative affairs of some of these schools are also being affected.

New recruitments, however, are not expected to be made until at least the end of the current fiscal year because of immense financial strain the government is facing.

Meanwhile, policies introduced by the provincial government to introduce reforms in the education sector have only served to rub many teachers the wrong way with 350 teachers applying for early retirement. Leaders of teachers’ associations Shafiq Bhalwalia and Basharat Iqbal Raja, when contacted by The Express Tribune said that the rationalisation policy of the government and the decision to hand over educational institutions to the local bodies have catalyzed the rate of teachers seeking early retirement.

The teachers who are seeking early retirement include those who still have five to seven years of services left before reaching the age of superannuation. If new teachers are not recruited over the next three months, they warned that schools in the district could face a further shortfall of some 300 teachers.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2019.