PESHAWAR, Feb 15: At least 5,500 teachers will be accomodated in public sector primary schools near their residences at the union council level, officials said here on Sunday.

They said their appointments would be made in accordance with a recent decision of the provincial government. The provincial government's decision was made to bring down the disparity in the teacher-student ratio, they said.

They said that 75 per cent of the recruitments would be made on the basis of merit lists prepared by union council authorities in accordance with the prescribed rules and policy of the provincial government while remaining 25 per cent would be inducted in accordance with merit lists prepared by district governments.

The decision, said the sources, was also aimed at ensuring teachers' appointments to be made against vacant or newly-created posts in the union council of their residences.

The move is meant to avoid complications the provincial schools and literacy department has been experiencing in the past when teachers resisted postings outside the area of their residences, adding it would also help control absenteeism among teachers.

The provincial government's plan to appoint primary school teachers included appointing 1,500 teachers to be appointed against as many vacant posts while 4,000 more would be inducted against newly-created posts.

Originally, the government had planned to recruit more than 8,500 primary school teachers during the current financial year. An announcement to this effect was made by the provincial finance minister, Sirajul Haq, in his budget speech on June 16, 2003.

However, the government had to revise these numbers after being pressed by the World Bank, which is financing NWFP's three- year roll-over Provincial Reforms Programme, involving three equal annual tranches of $90 million each.

The lending agency, said the sources, stopped the government from recruiting so many additional teachers in view of its already high establishment cost. "We apprised them [provincial government] that you already have a very high establishment cost and the recruitment of so many additional teachers would raise your annual salary bill to a new height," said an Islamabad-based representative of the World Bank.

The NWFP government's annual salary bills amounted to around Rs18 billion, nearly 50 per cent of the province's total annual revenue receipts. The province, according to official data, has 102,000 teachers, including about 60,500 primary school teachers, 14,800 middle school teachers, about 21,100 high school teachers and about 6,300 higher secondary school teachers posted in some 26,270 schools.

The number of teachers already employed by the provincial government comes to over 36 per cent of the total number of people employed by the provincial government.

"[The province's] salary bill, which experienced substantial increase during the current financial year due to the federal government's decision to effect a 15 per cent pay raise from the start of the 2003-04 fiscal year, will experience a further escalation after the appointment of some 5,500 teachers," said a finance manager of the province.

Officials said that authorities concerned of the provincial government were giving finalizing arrangements to appoint additional teachers and fill the vacant posts.

Authorities had come to know that Nowshera and Charsadda districts had around 1,000 surplus teachers. These surplus teachers would be adjusted against posts found to be lying vacant in several education institutions in the two districts.

Besides, some of them might also be adjusted against the newly-created posts, in the two said districts. The NWFP government, it was learnt, wanted bring down the teacher-student ratio from the existing level of 1:40 to 1:35 during the next few years.