‘Over 49,000 schools not functioning in Sindh’

Ghani says govt schools have been closed down due to lack of teachers

HYDERABAD: More than one-fourth of some 49,000 government schools in the province are closed mainly due to lack of teachers. Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani made this revelation on Thursday while talking to media persons after attending the hearings of two petitions, pertaining to closed schools and regularisation of the contractual head teachers, filed in the Sindh High Court.

"There is a shortage of 37,000 teachers at public schools," said Ghani, however, he adding that the "lengthy process" of filling the vacancies on the basis of merit had been started.

According to him, most schools that were closed down were actually established without proper planning. He implied that those schools were not even required in the areas where they were constructed.

When asked about the appointment of head teachers through a test conducted by the Institute of Business Administration, Sukkur, he said the provincial government was reviewing the appointments to determine whether they were made in accordance with the rules.

Meanwhile, a two-member SHC bench, comprising Justice Muhammad Shafi Siddiqui and Justice Muhammad Faisal Kamal Alam, gave two weeks to the minister to submit a detailed list of the functioning and non-functioning government schools as well as the posts of teachers that have been lying vacant. The court asked the minister to explain why 150 schools were closed in Tando Allahyar District alone.

"The children are ready to sit on the floor under the open sky to acquire education but you ought to at least appoint the teachers to teach them," Justice Siddiqui remarked. The bench observed that the education department had been receiving billions of rupees of loans from international institutions but the required reforms in the education department were not carried out.

The court also noted that the education department may be making good policies but the implementation was where the department was lagging behind. It asked the government to appoint teachers for public schools at the union council level so that the issue of the shortage may not crop up.

Ghani acknowledged before the court that the shortage of teachers existed due to certain misplaced policies of his department. He added that the policies in question were being reviewed to address issues like the shortage of the teachers.

The education minister also  said that the temporary closure of schools in the province to prevent the spread of coronavirus. He said that 13,000 Pakistanis recently travelled to Iran and a majority of them belonged to Sindh.

Ghani said some elements were spreading false information through social media to scare the people and claimed that the provincial government was not hiding any information relevant to coronavirus.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2020.