Education sector worst hit by Covid

Shutting of institutions, financial crisis, teachers' protests highlights of 2020

LAHORE:

The year 2020 was disappointing for the education sector in Punjab as for the first time in history the educational institutions in the country remained closed for around eight months due to the coronavirus pandemic. The circumstances also resulted in the introduction of online education system at the primary, secondary, higher secondary and university levels.

Amid the tough conditions for the education sector, the teaching community of the country was seen raising voice for their acceptance of their basic demands. Beside the teachers, students also suffered due to the cancellation of exams and problems faced by them in accessing the online education. The closure of schools in the province due to Covid-19 was the top issue of education sector in Punjab. In the earlier part of the year, the schools were closed for almost six months, while by its end they had again been shut in November.

All stakeholders were severely affected by the disruption of the academic activities caused by the pandemic. School education was the worst affected sector with the teachers facing the tough challenge of adapting to the online system and implementing it for the students on an urgent basis without much training. Meanwhile, their own common demands related to their jobs were not fulfilled by the government. The government school teachers held several protest. Thousands of regular posts of grade 17 to 20 were not filled in schools across Punjab.

The vacant posts include hundreds of heads of schools. In a positive development , for the first time schools were daclared English medium from pre-primary level in Punjab. This year also, the provincial government failed to implement a universal education system in all institutions, although there was a heated debate on the issue. Use of force by police to disperse protesting school teachers in Islamabad was also widely criticised. In the college sector, the two-year BA and BSc programmes were discontinued and an associate degree introduced. However, lack of adequate planning and infrastructure at the colleges created problems in admissions to the associate degree programme. A budget cut for the department caused widespread disappointment as hundreds of colleges were affected.

The process of recruitment was also not completed, leaving vacant thousands of posts of college teachers. The College Teachers Internship Programme (CTIP) could not be started this year due to coronavirus and around 5,000 candidates could not be recruited. The issues of promotions and raise for teachers were also not settled.

Financial crunch

Many universities in the province faced a financial crisis. The biggest university of engineering, UET Lahore, was the worst hit and its administration announced a 50 per cent cut in the teachers' salaries. Allegations of corruption in 25 departments of Lahore College For Women University prompted the Public Accounts Committee of Punjab Assembly to order its audit. An incident of sexual harassment at GCU was highlighted on social media, while protests were held in PU against its administration.

Student activists kept pressing their demand for lifting the ban on their unions. "It was a disappointing year for school teachers and sector as a whole year and we launched protests for our rights," said Punjab Teachers Union Secretary General Rana Liaqat Ali. When asked for his feelings at the end of 2020, Punjab Professors and College Teachers Association leader Hafiz Abdul Khaliq, "We suffered due to cut in budget this year".