Graft charges haunt edu dept in K-P PA

Opposition demands inquiry into financial irregularities

PESHAWAR:

The provincial assembly echoed with reports of alleged embezzlement in the provincial education department with the opposition benches demanding an inquiry into the financial irregularities and the process of hiring teachers in the department.

As the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly session resumed on Friday morning, Awami National Party (ANP) Parliamentary Leader Sardar Hussain Babak claimed that decisions implemented in the Elementary and Secondary Education Department (ESED) of the province come from Islamabad.

He further alleged that the testing agencies used to ensure merit in hiring teachers is the actual source of corruption in the department. He challenged the treasury benches to prove if any teacher had been hired purely on merit.

The education minister has been changed almost every parliamentary year, Babak said. Suggesting there were financial irregularities in the department, he said that Rs55 billion are released for the department which has rented offices at some of the most expensive spots across the provincial capital and in the districts.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Parliamentary Leader Sardar Yousaf said that the testing agencies are substandard. He further claimed that schools which had been destroyed in the 2005 earthquake in the Hazara division have yet to be rebuilt.

ANP’s Khushdil Khan added that no one in government has tried to reform the sector as schools continue to operate at less than capacity. On the higher education side, Khushdil criticised the government for letting universities operate without vice-chancellors, instead of deputing juniors at senior positions.

Independent candidate from the merged districts Mir Kalam Khan stated that seats reserved for students from the merged districts have been reduced at educational institutions in Multan, Bahawalpur and Faisalabad districts. Further, he said that Pashto, the native language of the province, has been excluded from the curriculum.

Hafiz Asamuddin claimed that religious seminaries have a critical role to play in the local educational set up, but due to militancy and subsequent operations, education in seminaries has been badly affected.

Responding to the opposition members, particularly a call-to-attention notice by ANP’s Waqar Ahmed Khan on a school built for seven villages in Hazara but which still does not have a teacher two years on, said that K-P Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has directed to reopen all closed schools in the province by immediately providing them with the necessary facilities.

Moreover, a special committee has been formed in this regard, he said. Teachers who are unwilling to work in the second shift will be replaced, he said.

The minister further said that in the past, teachers used to be appointed on the promises of the vote, but now they are appointed through universal testing purely on their ability.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2020.