PESHAWAR: The Elementary and Secondary Education Department has merged about 1,670 government primary schools into other nearest schools to stop wastage of government resources. Most of such schools were either functioning in the same buildings or had nominal enrolment.

Sources in the education department told Dawn that majority of the teachers posted at such schools earlier had been getting salaries without performing their duties. They said that the department had also identified many people working as proxies in place of regular teachers in these schools, which were later merged into the nearest government schools.

The sources said that 174 of the total merged schools were operating with other schools in the same buildings, while 1,496 were government Maktab schools (schools established in mosques).

They said that following merger of the schools the teachers, who had earlier never performed their duties, had been transferred to other schools. They said that many teachers deputed in such schools had been working abroad, while the proxies were being paid by them.

Kohistan tops the list of the merged schools with 261, followed by Mansehra with 237 merged schools, according to official data available with this scribe.

Among others, Bannu has 171 merged schools, Upper Dir 134, Haripur 121, Abbottabad 110, Charsadda 108, Peshawar 102, Swat 88, Dera Ismail Khan 60, Mardan 54, Buner 36, Swabi 34, Lakki Marwat 30, Malakand 26, Nowshera 26, Shangla 20, Tank 13, Lower Dir 13, Kohat seven, Karak two and Battagram one.

When contacted, a senior official of the education department told Dawn that the previous provincial governments had established another school in the buildings of the already functioning schools. He said that there were many buildings where two to three schools were operating in several areas. He said that the schools in the single building virtually used to work like a single school, but the strength of teachers, clerks and class-IVs employees deputed in such schools was for more than one school.

He said that before merger the students of each grade of the two or three schools would sit in a single classroom. So teachers sufficient for a single primary school would perform duties in such an arrangement while rest of them, actually the surplus staff, would not come to the schools, he said.

“Separate attendance registers were maintained for each class of the combined schools established in the same building for record though the students were sitting in the same classrooms,” he said.

Asked why the second and third school was established in the building of another primary school, the official said that it was done by the previous government on the insistence of MPAs to recruit the class-IV employees of their choice, he said.

The official appreciated the education department’s decision for officially merge such schools because the surplus teachers deputed in schools functioning in a single building were not performing their duties.

The official said that the Maktab schools were established in 1980s when there was a need for schools, but the government at that time couldn’t construct buildings due to funds scarcity. He said that in such a situation schools were established in mosques where the government appointed teachers. He said that such schools were also established in the hujras (private guesthouses) of the well-off people.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2015