May 22, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 05, 1428

CHITRAL, May 21: As if taking a cue from politicians, the students of the Government Girls High School, Garam Chashma, have been on strike for the past three days in protest against the absence of all five of their teachers for the last three months.

The unprecedented step by the girl students, coupled with poor state of affairs obtaining at the school, prompted Lotkoh Union Council Nazim Shireen Khan and Shoghore Union Council Nazim Abdul Majeed to hold a press conference on Monday to brief the media about the situation there. The two nazims confirmed that the five teachers had not been attending the school since March, and despite protests by parents and elected representatives of the area, the high-ups of the education department had turned a blind eye to the issue.

They alleged that all schools in the Lotkoh tehsil faced a similar situation as schoolteachers did not attend schools regularly, reportedly in connivance with the education authorities. The nazims threatened to close down the girls school if corrective steps were not taken against the teachers within three days.

They said the area people were lagging behind in education because of the state of affairs obtaining in the educational institutions. Most of the teachers serving in schools in the two union councils were non-locals who had hired local matriculate girls to teach in their place in the school on a monthly ‘salary’ of Rs1,000 a month.

The nazims alleged that the education department authorities had been patronising the teachers in question, and held them responsible for the deteriorating educational standards in the area.