Profiteering: In Upper Dir, govt schools turn into private tuition centres

Teachers give private tuitions at school premises and charge a handsome fee from students.

UPPER DIR:

A majority of government schools have turned into private tuition centres in Upper Dir district, where teachers charge a heavy fee for private classes on school premises.

Many parents have also decided to stop sending their children to school due to the lack of teaching staff and poor academic performance.  Rafiullah Khan, a resident of Ittefaq Colony in Warhi tehsil, said that his son Sohaib Khan is a student of grade three in a government primary school where teachers told him and other parents that they should send their children for tuitions during the winter vacations. “The teachers told us that our children are academically weak,” he said.



Sohaib along with 25 of his peers went to the school for tuitions. “After a week, the teachers told me that now my son is improving in Math, English and Urdu,” Rafiullah said, adding that he pays Rs300 per month in tuition fees.

Gul Alam, a resident of Warhi, said he forced his son to quit school and take tuitions because he was weak in his studies. Alam’s son Gulfam was a fifth grade student at the Government Primary School No-1 and now also works in the vegetable business with his father.

Alam said Gulfam’s Math teacher advised him to send his son for tuitions during the winter break to improve his performance. The teacher himself was absent from school for the first three months of the academic session and only joined a week before the vacations started, he added.



I cut my expenses so that I could pay Rs400 each month to afford Gulfam’s math tuitions, he said. “Although my financial situation is not good, I wish my son becomes an engineer.”

Abdur Rasheed Baloch, the education district officer for Upper Dir, said he is unaware about the situation. Baloch claimed, however, that the standard of education in the district has improved under his watch. “I take prompt action where I find any irregularity” he said.

Commenting on the absence of teaching staff and teachers running private tuition centres inside school premises, he said that he will take action wherever such activity is taking place. He, however, blamed militancy for the worsening education system in the district.

Aurangzeb Khan, a teacher who gives private tuitions in school, said that during the winter, children have nothing to do so this is a good way of keeping them busy.

“We charge Rs300 per student,” he said, adding that it’s better to teach rather than doing other jobs in the winter holidays.

A government high school teacher in Jelar said most teachers in the school have other jobs and do not show up for months. They only appear for a day or two when salaries are being paid. After that, they disappear again, he said, alleging that most of them pay bribes to officials in the education department.

Malik Zakir Khan, a social activist, said he was thrashed by a group of teachers in Warhi Bazaar who threatened him of dire consequences. Zakir had filed multiple complaints with higher education officials in Peshawar against teachers doing two jobs and running private tuition centres. An inquiry is underway against the same teachers that trashed him.

Zakir claims that 80% of schools in Upper Dir have turned into tuition centres.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2013.