LARKANA, Jan 26: The districts’s education system is being affected by the closure of 548 middle and primary schools.
Giving details in this regard, sources in the Sindh Education Management Information System (SEMIS) told this correspondent that 260 boys, 213 girls and 75 co-education primary and middle schools had been closed down in the district.
When contacted, the chairman of the district council’s sub- committee on education, Amir Bakhsh Gaad, said that around 700 primary and secondary boys’ and girls’ schools were lying closed in the district.
He said that over 633 schools were found to have been closed when the district government had taken over its responsibilities, adding that 380 schools had been made functional with the efforts of the council by way of postings of teachers.
Criticizing the postings of teachers after August 2002, he said that they had been made in a haphazard way because of political interference.
Sources in the EDO (education)’s office said that around 673 schools were closed when the new EDO had taken over the charge.
They said that of the total, 430 schools had been made functional and 243 schools still remained closed in the district.
These schools, they said, had not been made functional because of ban on fresh recruitment and retirement of 170 teachers.
Meanwhile, Amir Bakhsh Gaad was critical of frequent transfers and postings of teachers on political interference, saying that it had caused the collapse of the district’s education system.
He said that the district government had repeatedly informed the Sindh government about the plight of education and the intensity of political interference but without any visible results.
He said that the system had suffered further with fresh postings of five assistant district officers, who, according to him, did not have powers to draw or disburse funds.
According to SEMIS officials, the rural area had been the worst affected, as the number of schools, which had closed there rose to 543 while only five schools had closed in the urban area.
