Herculean task: Ending evening shifts—a long way to go

‘Out of the 18,956 evening shift students, only 600 have been moved to the morning shift’

ISLAMABAD: Out of the 18,956 students studying in evening shifts, so far only 600 students from two colleges have been moved to the morning shift. The rest will be transferred in phases, new Minister of State for Capital Administration and Development Division Tariq Fazal Chaudhry told the National Assembly on Thursday, in response to a question from MNA Nighat Parveen Mir.

A committee comprising of three directors and headed by the model colleges director, was constituted on August 24 to move evening shift students to morning shifts while also improving education standards and bring uniformity in the education system.

Evening classes for intermediate and bachelors were initially introduced in 1984 in Islamabad College for Boys G-6/3 and Islamabad Model College for Boys F-8/4. It was later discontinued due to shortage of funds to pay additional teaching staff.

In 1987, the evening shift was reintroduced at college level. The facility was later extended to primary and secondary levels to ease the growing pressure for admissions.

The minister stated that in the second phase, CADD plans to build 19 additional blocks and 285 classrooms in 13 institutes, adding that the Rs866 million project proposal has been submitted to the Ministry of Planning and Development for approval.

Similarly, the minister remarked that four subcommittees have also been tasked to assess problems including missing facilities, shortage of transport, and survey of buildings to check for optimum utilisation.

Interestingly, after MNA Aisha Syed asked a question relating to the non-payment of salaries to daily wage teachers, the minister initially denied there was any problem, then amended his answer to say salaries had only been paid up till June 2015.

Over 1,800 daily wage employees including 845 teachers from model colleges have been protesting for the last week against non-payment of salaries since July 2015. The new CADD management is holding regular meetings with federal directorate director general and other staff to strike a deal over the long-standing issue.

According to an official privy to the matter, a solution to this issue will be a big challenge.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th,  2015.