RAWALPINDI: In order to ensure that teachers are present at school and that high quality education is imparted, the City District Government Rawalpindi (CDGR) has started monitoring educational institutions in the district through local administration officials.

A senior CDGR official told Dawn that assistant commissioners (ACs) in the district were assigned to check on the presence of teachers in educational institutions and will also be checking the quality of education by examining the work given to students.

“The quality of education in more than 150 informal schools will also be monitored. The provincial educational department paid female teachers Rs5,000 per month to teach 25 students each in their homes in areas where there are no schools,” he said.

He said that CDGR officials had noticed that many teachers did not come in and that informal schools were not working properly which is why the monitoring was started.

Public schools which do not produce good results in three years will be given to the private sector, he said, adding that a performance report will also be sent to Lahore.

Schools which do not deliver good results in three years will be privatised

However, Punjab Teachers Association’s District President Chaudhry Sagheer Alam criticised the move as a new way of bothering teachers.

“This measure was adopted to force teachers to leave their government jobs because 19 officials from the education department are already monitoring teachers’ performance every month,” he said, adding that the Special Branch of the police is also monitoring teachers’ performance in the province.

The provincial government has reduced the number of government schools from 63,000 to 50,000 and will further reduce this number by giving schools to the private sector, he said, adding that there was a need to improve missing facilities and increase classrooms in school buildings to accommodate more students.

Teachers’ working environment is not conducive, Mr Alam said, adding that teachers were under a lot of pressure at work.

He said that the monitoring of teachers through ACs will create more problems and that they will not be able to avail their holidays without permission.

The provincial government gets millions of rupees from foreign donors for the improvement of the education system and the money is not being used because schools do not even have drinking water, fans and books, he said.

When asked, Executive District Officer Education Qazi Zahoorul Haq said that monitoring teachers and the quality of education imparted in government schools has started and that assistant commissioner will soon be making rounds of schools in their areas.

He said this was a good step because government officials other than those of education department will give an impartial report on teacher performance, including those at informal schools.

“The assistant commissioners will also be checking on security measures adopted by schools, the quality of construction material being used in the construction of buildings and on the attendance of teachers,” he said.

CDGR will also be increasing the pace of work on registering private schools in the district, Mr Haq said and that 40 schools have been registered so far.

He added that applications for 46 new schools have been forwarded to the district coordination officer, who has formed teams to check if the schools exist and the number of students enrolled in them.

Published in Dawn, May 21st, 2016