August 19, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 20, 1424

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MIANWALI, Aug 18: Another Rs400 million allocated for the PTC teachers training are feared to be wasted as to the result of poor planning, corruption and political intervention in the education sector.

The Punjab government has once again taken the initiative to launch “All primary teachers training in the subject of English” with the assistance of the World Bank. Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi was particularly interested in starting the teaching of English subject in government primary schools on a pattern similar to private schools.

The chief minister had assigned the task to the directorate of staff development, which is now called the University of Education, Lahore. The main objective of the project was to teach English with the help of textbooks ‘Step-I to Step-V’, which were made compulsory from class 1.

Earlier, the Punjab government had launched several teachers training programmes worth billions of rupees, including the Primary Education Project, the Punjab Middle Schooling Project and the Girls Primary Education Project. However, neither the literacy rate nor the teaching style could be improved. Poor planning and absence of any fear of accountability were described as the major causes of the wastage of public money.

A survey to know the reasons for the failure of the PTC teachers training project in Mianwali district was conducted. It revealed that “All primary teachers training in the subject of English” project was simultaneously started in all districts of the Punjab to train 150,000 PTC teachers. A target to train 1,627 female and 1,924 male teachers besides 196 female and 270 elementary educators was set for the district.

The training process consisted of two phases. The first phase was meant for summer vacation 2003 while the second phase for winter holidays. Each phase comprised two rounds of training of 12 days each. The first training round was started on Aug 2 and the second on Aug 15. For this purpose, around 24 training centres, including 12 female centres, were set up at different places. Two lead trainers — one English teacher (male) and the other math teacher (female) who received one week training from the EU — were asked to train 50 secondary school teachers in Mianwali, preferably those who had been teaching English at schools in six days a week.

Only eight female and 12 male teachers, including 14 heads of educational institutions, turned up to get training at the local teachers training college. Three senior heads left the training workshop after realizing that they could not further impart training to two PTC badges properly.

After three days, the local education administration sent more teachers, mostly the locals, only to complete the number. On the following day, three trainees left the workshop to join more lucrative duties of matric supplementary examinations at Sargodha. One of the trainees with the connivance of local authorities simultaneously joined two workshops — one at the Teachers Training College and the other at the Government Comprehensive High School.

Similarly, a female master trainer with the consent of the authorities concerned started conducting two workshops at a time — one at the on-going project and the other at the Allama Iqbal Open University (BEd workshop). On the concluding day of the MT workshop, the education authority sent three more teachers in place of the deserters only to receive appointment orders. According to the instructions, the training college principal issued appointment letters to all MTs who received training or not on the concluding day on Aug 26.

The female teachers having no political influence were thrown to far-flung areas. Two senior female teachers of the Government Girls High School, Civil Station, and the G.G Model High School were sent out of the city despite the fact that they were entitled to work at training centres set up in their own schools. Several teachers, mostly females, in resentment did not turn up to their centres as a result of which two female and one male centre in Kundian, Chakrala and Isakhel, respectively, remained without master trainers. The EDO (education) appointed untrained heads of schools and local teachers to impart training to 360 PTC teachers at these centres.

When Teachers Training College principal Hidayatullah Malik was contacted to know about an unrest among the teachers community, he simply replied that he had informed the higher authorities about it. However, EDO (education) Mohammed Afzal Hayat claimed that the on-going teachers training project was running quite satisfactorily.

The Punjab government had launched the PTC teachers training project last year. The project was named ‘Girls Primary Education Project’ in which all PTC teachers and learning coordinators had received a three-week training in the subjects of English, maths and science. Under this heavy budget project of Rs700 million, all PTC female teachers had received training in the subject of English.