Non-functional schools

It is a common experience the world over that younger students tend to avoid school, but in developing countries it is the other way round. In these countries, teachers and education department officials too bunk off school and work. This is one of the misfortunes, among many, of the Third World countries. Corruption at every level, teachers and education department employees staying away from duty and serious lack of facilities mark the sorry state of education in Sindh. The gravity of the issue can be gauged from the fact that out of the 2,229-odd government schools in Dadu district, 450 remained completely closed last year. This means that around 20% schools kept their doors closed to students; and among the non-functional schools 198 exist on paper only. Such a sizable number of ghost schools are to be found only on the government record.

Also, last year 218 teachers remained absent from their duties. They should have been drawing their salaries without working. It is, however, unclear whether these educators were ghost teachers or real ones, or how many people other than the ghost teachers benefited from the funds allocated for these teachers’ pay. As many as 669 employees of the education department completely stayed away from work. These disclosures were recently made by the Chief Monitoring Officer of the Education Department.

As for availability of other facilities, the situation is no better either. More than 500 schools are without boundary walls and large numbers of schools lack basic facilities like toilets and electricity, and for furniture it is mostly broken chairs and benches. A large number of boys and girls give up education before completing primary school. There are few girls’ schools in rural areas and this is seriously hindering girls’ education. There is a need for residential schools for girls. Every year, the government allocates large amounts of money for education. But education continues to stagnate.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2021.

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