July 10, 2008	Thursday	Rajab 6, 1429

RAWALPINDI, July 9: The number of vacant teachers posts in Rawalpindi city schools has swelled to 3,200 while 145 schools out of 266 in the district are still without headmaster/headmistress for the last seven months.

The vacant teaching posts in both girls and boys’ primary and middle schools include 1032 vacant posts for primary teachers course, 300 elementary school teachers, 120 senior vernaculars, 230 English teachers, 47 oriental teachers, 120 of Arabic teachers, 159 vacant posts of physical educations tutors, and some 200 vacant posts of SST teachers.

Executive District Officer (EDO) Education Chaudhry Yousaf told Dawn that a summary to fill the vacancies had been sent to Punjab government adding that the provincial government had also sought the comments from the education department.

He admitted that the vacancies had created acute shortage of teachers and were affecting the educational career of students.

However, he expressed the hope that the Punjab government would resolve the problem as soon as possible. The dearth of teaching staff in schools is being attributed to the ban on appointment of regular teachers by the Pervaiz Ellahi government and introduced policy of contract.

A source in education department said that under the slogan of Parha Likha Punjab, the authorities had constructed school buildings and distributed some textbooks among the students, but they did not pay any attention to the appointment of school teachers and the issue remained unaddressed.

He said the situation was grave in rural and remote areas of Rawalpindi particularly in Kotli Sattian, Kalar Syeddan and Murree where ratio is one teacher and 80 students.

Education experts say besides ban, the qualification for the appointment of contract teachers set by the then Punjab government was another reason for the posts lying vacant.