Teaching community schools: Why serve when you can just reap the benefits

Sources reveal 15% of the teachers employed by the BECS projects are working elsewhere.

ISLAMABAD:

Around 15 per cent of teachers employed with the Basic Education Community Schools (BECS) project are not really working.

Official sources, asking not to be named, told The Express Tribune on Wednesday that between 10 to 15 per cent of the total 15,000 teachers are registered as employees of BECS when they are actually in other organisations.

They said that salaries amounting to Rs800 million of these 15,000 teachers have been released by the finance division till June 30, after which the project was “technically closed” following the devolution of the education ministry to the provinces under the 18th Amendment.

The 0.6 million community schools spread in all provinces across the country, including Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) and Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), operate under the National Education Foundation (NEF) and cater to the country’s rural areas.

The sources added that there is an internal strife between NEF Managing Director (MD) Kamran Zafar and BECS Project Director Brigadier Siraj over the release of salaries to BECS employees. They said that funds to BECS have been blocked by the NEF MD since July as he wanted to conduct a thorough verification of these teachers from NADRA to ascertain whether they are still working for BECS or if they have left the schools.

The NEF MD said that the process of verification of BECS employees through NADRA is in progress, adding that the salaries would now be transferred to the accounts of the teachers and not given to them in cash. He said that cheques for almost 50 per cent of the teachers have been prepared and the remaining cheques would be readied “shortly”. He admitted there have been some discrepancies with the records of Balochistan and interior Sindh, which is why Balochistan province has not sent its claims yet.

An official of NEF, who used to conduct field visits to provinces to monitor the schools, said his team was never allowed to visit far flung areas in Balochistan on the pretext of security. He said that a senior leader of a ruling party in Balochistan, who runs over 100 BECS schools in the region, has never allowed NEF mentoring teams to visit these schools to ascertain the exact situation.

Another NEF official alleged that “the corruption is committed in connivance with of influential politicians” and that the provincial directors of BECS have been appointed on political grounds. The BECS director of Sindh is a cousin of a federal minister, adding that one federal minister also appointed his close relative working in BPS-16 against a post of BPS-20.

“It was due to this corruption and nepotism that none of the province except Sindh was ready to adopt the project’s devolution to the provinces,” the official added.

Since June 2011, BECS project has been “technically closed” as the federal or the provincial governments have not earmarked fresh budget for it. However, ironically, majority of the teachers of these schools are still performing their duties, expecting they will receive their dues.





Published in The Express Tribune, September 8^th, 2011.