FAISALABAD: More than 200 government high and higher secondary schools in the district are working without heads for a couple of months creating plethora of problems for the teachers as well as the students.

There are 522 schools in urban and rural areas of the district imparting education to thousands of students. Out of these, 97 high and higher secondary schools for boys and 126 for girls are without head teachers/principals.

Sources said scores of teachers had been promoted in the March last and were awaiting posting, but their cases are pending with the authorities concerned. They said the situation was in the notice of Punjab government but nothing was done to rectify it.

Hafiz Nasir, an office bearer of the Senior Schools Staff Association said how teachers of an institution could ensure quality of education without the head.

He said that instead of posting permanent heads in these institutions, secondary school teachers (SST) had been given the additional charge of principal, headmaster or headmistress who had no relevant experience.

He said other SSTs in many cases were not following the directions of the temporary heads because they were in the same grade. He said the situation was more pathetic in the remote areas of the district where department’s officers rarely bother to visit the institutions physically.

He said the senior teachers who got promoted were awaiting their posting as heads of these institution but the authorities seemed to be in no hurry.

A senior teacher requesting anonymity told Dawn that the situation was adversely affecting these institutions creating issues like poor maintenance of the campuses, lack of effective check on the staff and focus on enrollment and attendance of the students etc.

He said promotion and postings of the head teachers would not cost government extra, rather it would increase the enrollment and quality of education.

Currently, he said the government had been following the policies of the previous government which needed to be amended for the well being of the institutions, staff and the students as well.

Commissioner Asif Iqbal, quoting the chief executive officer of the district education authority, said all the details of the vacant posts and missing facilities at these institutions had been discussed with the education minister and the secretary concerned. Both of them had promised that issues would be resolved by making recruitment through the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC), he added.

School education department had forwarded the request to the PPSC for recruitment, the commissioner quoted the CEO as saying.

The commissioner said as per policy of the Punjab government, the senior most teachers working as SSTs, subject specialists (SS) and senior subject specialists (SSS) had been given the additional charges in these institutions to run the financial matters on regular basis.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2018