BANNU, Nov 7: The education authorities have detected 19 'ghost schools' in the region and stopped the payment of salaries of 240 teachers and 10 class-IV employees, official sources told Dawn on Sunday.

AEO Saeed Mohammad and assistant agency education officer (female) Nazneen Bukhari paid surprise visits in recent weeks to the Bannu Frontier Region (FR) and the action was taken on the basis of their findings.

Most of the 19 schools were found locked, while some of them were been used as Hujras and residential buildings. Some of the schools were found to have remained closed for more than two months. In most of the cases, women teachers had hired local women as their proxies and paid them half of their salaries, the sources said.

The situation was worse in some far-off areas where students of 8th class of a high school did not know about the national anthem and the name of Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Some of them did not know the name of the capital city of Pakistan, the officials said.

There are 363 higher secondary, high, middle and primary schools in the FR Bannu. Of these, one higher secondary, 16 high, 18 middle and 125 primary schools are for boys and two middle and 145 primary schools for girls.

Besides, there are three community schools for boys and 25 for girls, which are run with foreign aid, five branch primary schools, six Maktab primary schools and two industrial home centres in the region. In all these schools, 23,448 students are enrolled, while the number of teaching staff is 1,334 and that of class-IV employees 628.

In many areas, the locals told this correspondent that some of the schools had no teachers at all and many teachers never come to schools but receive salaries regularly.

When contacted, AEO Saeed Mohammad said he had visited all the schools where the attendance of teachers and students was very low and called for emergency steps to save their future.

"Some of the schools that I visited were decorated with posters of Indian actors and actresses and portraits of political leaders," the AEO said.

He said that the education officials had found 19 schools totally closed, but the teachers posted there were receiving salaries regularly.

The sources said that the owners of the school buildings received half of the salaries as commission from the teachers for marking them present.

The AEO said that some teachers in the schools turned up for duty only at the month-end, but were shown present for the whole month. In the GHS of Chapari, 10 teachers were absent at the same time, he added.

He said that the education department had stopped the salaries of 200 teachers. "Now we will serve show-cause notices on them for negligence and absence. Those who do not respond will face termination from the service," he said.

Assistant Agency Education Officer (female) Nazneen Bukhari, who paid surprise visits to girl schools, said that she had stopped the salaries of about 40 teachers and 10 class-IV employees, while explanations had been called from 15 other teachers.

The performance of about 60 per cent girl schools was below average, she said, adding that some of the schools remained completely closed, while the rest faced teachers' absenteeism.

She said that an inspection team, sent by the NWFP governor, had recommended to the authorities to stop payment of salaries of such teachers.