KARACHI, Dec 27: The city government will move a summary to the Literacy Commission of Pakistan about the 146 Non-Formal Basic Education Schools established in violation of rules and regulations.

Well-placed sources informed PPI that these schools had been set up throughout the province without meeting the criteria, as non-formal basic education fell under local governments as per the SLGO-2001.

“About 50 schools have been established in Karachi without informing Literacy Group of Offices, a department of CDGK, which is responsible to run and monitor these schools,” sources added.

They alleged that two high officials, one of which had now retired, of Non Formal Basic Education department, were involved in allowing establishment of these schools and allegedly distributed Rs14 million on account of books and furniture among them.

“There was no record of huge amount of funds, as departments concerned were kept in dark at the time of distribution of this amount,” the sources alleged, adding that now when the officials were being asked to provide the records, they were reluctant to co-operate in this regard.

Giving the details, the sources claimed that after the inception of the CDGK, the NFBE department should have been completely devolved to city government, however, Literacy Group of Offices only got the responsibility to monitor 154 NFBE Schools, running under the department of Sindh government, and to disburse salaries among the teachers through Karachi DCO.

They said that last month, it came into knowledge of the city government that the director of the NFBE department had distributed salaries of teachers, despite the fact that it was to be done by the city government.

The city government had also learnt that salaries were distributed among teachers of 300 schools, instead of 154 schools, the sources added.

The sources suspected that some ‘unscrupulous’ elements were involved in this ‘scam.’

It was learnt that the city government had repeatedly asked the NFBE department to provide it the list of teachers and locations of 146 newly-established NFBE schools in Karachi District but to no avail.

“This matter has also been brought in the knowledge of provincial education minister, chief secretary and education secretary, but no step has been taken against the officials involved in this illegal practice”, the sources maintained.—PPI