Extra-curricular activity: Students pressed into farm work, headmaster in dock

The land belongs to an MPA, says headmaster; lawmaker denies responsibility.

MULTAN:

The headmaster of a government school in Layyah was suspended on Friday after being accused of making his students work on a farm.

Students of Higher Secondary School, Jaman Shah, told the media on Saturday that the school’s headmaster, Fayyaz Ahmed, had forced them to work on agricultural land for the past year if they wanted to pass to the next grade.

Executive District Officer (Education) Tahira Shafiq told The Express Tribune that Ahmed had been suspended. She said an inquiry had shown that as many as 30 students were made to work on the farm.

“Twelve of them [students] are from grade seven… seven are eighth-graders and 11 are from primary school.”

Shafiq said a show cause notice had been issued to District Officer (Secondary Education) Sheikh Muhammad Rahi after an initial inquiry he had been assigned was found a fake.

She said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had now taken notice of the matter and demanded an immediate inquiry.

“A five-member committee has been constituted to submit a detailed report in a week,” she added.

The parents of the students told the media that their children had been loading sugarcane on tractor-trolleys for two weeks. They said the students were marked present at the school and were made to wear uniforms.

“They were also made to plant onion seeds till late into the evenings… the headmaster’s father, Ghulam Hussain, and his brother supervised them,” they said.

Fayyaz Ahmed told the media that the land belonged to MPA Ijaz Ahmed Achlana, the provincial parliamentary secretary for law and order.

He said Achlana had directed him to make the school children work at the land.

Achlana denied the allegations.  He said he had nothing to do with the matter. He said the land had been leased to the headmaster.

“The land has been with the family of the headmaster for 40 years… a fair inquiry will reveal that I have nothing to do with this,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2014.