PESHAWAR: Authorities at Fata secretariat have detected irregularities in the recruitment of teachers at 109 community schools in South Waziristan Agency, according to an inquiry report.

The community schools were established on the directives of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor in the militancy-hit South Waziristan Agency to promote literacy rate, the report says.

After establishment in 2009-10, the Fata secretariat received reports about non-functional community schools in Fata particularly in South Waziristan owing to which directorate of education Fata decided to close these facilities with the approval of additional chief secretary from January 1, 2011.

However, sources said, on the persistent demand of the teaching community and tribal elders, it was decided on June 28, 2011 that a scrutiny committee under the chairmanship of respective political agents/additional political agents would be constituted to verify the status of all community schools and reopening of eligible schools.

Probe body suggests recovery of illegally drawn salaries from them

The committee for South Waziristan in its report certified that all 109 community schools were functioning properly.

Later, the governor decided that all the Primary School Teachers (PSTs) serving in the community schools should be adjusted against regular posts phase-wise with abolishment of the respective community schools.

The governor had directed that no fresh candidate should be considered for recruitment till all the eligible community schools teachers were absorbed in their respective agencies and frontier regions.

Ironically, the secretariat had conducted around 80 departmental inquiries and detected irregularities in line departments, especially in health and education sectors, but those inquiries could not reach logical conclusion.

An inquiry committee had recently unearthed 19 ‘ghost’ community health centres and dispensaries in Khyber Agency, which had been functioning only on papers since 2003-04.

Similarly, another inquiry into alleged ‘fake’ appointment of 159 Secondary School Teachers (SSTs) has been put on the back burner.

The committee in its probe found that the service record of regularised of the teachers at community schools was not properly maintained, which was responsibility of agency education officer, Tank.

“No personal file was maintained nor the service books of the employees were complete,” it says.

The basic record like first appointment order as community schoolteacher, medical certificate, qualification etc were not available in the service book.

In the absence of the important documents, the inquiry committee was unable to verify whether the regularised teachers possessed the required qualification or not.

It also failed to know whether non-locals were preferred over the local community schoolteachers at the time of regularisation or unqualified teachers were still on the payroll other than those inserted later on.

According to the inquiry report, the officials at the helm of affairs regularised 76 community schoolteachers against the regular posts. They were required to close down 38 community schools but failed to do so.

Similarly, three community schools in Faisal Kot, Abdul Ali Kot and Inayatullah Karmzkhel areas were not part of the PC-I for establishing community schools but were illegally made part of it.

During its probe, the inquiry committee also found that instead of appointing 44 teachers in the community schools, 65 candidates were inserted into the project who were drawing their pay in violation of the PC-I. The total amount, drawn irregularly as salary from 2011 to 2015, amounted to Rs32 million.

The committee detected five community teachers, who were regularised but they were drawing double salaries being community school teacher and regular teacher.

The inquiry committee has recommended that 62 freshly appointed teachers should be laid off and the school should be closed down. The qualified community schools teachers not adjusted so far should be adjusted against the existing vacancies of PST as per decision of the governor and the scheme of community schools should be closed down accordingly.

The committee has also recommended that the educational and professional qualification of the community schoolteachers, not regularised as yet, may be examined by the education department at the head office level and services of unqualified teachers shall be dispensed with.

“Salaries drawn by the community schoolteachers in violation of the PC-I after regularisation should be recovered,” it says.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2016