HARIPUR: Almost half of the government primary schools in Haripur district have been functioning with only one teacher for more than a year to the suffering of students.

Sources told Dawn that the district had 562 government primary schools for boys and 250 of them had only one teacher to take six classes daily. They said as the teachers were overburdened with work, the students didn’t get quality education.

Social activist Ghulab Khan said a teacher of the Haripur primary schools taught 40-150 students enrolled in kindergarten-fifth classes daily. He said it was humanly impossible for a teacher to take so many classes in five hours.

“A teacher can teach students two or three subjects during duty hours,” he said.

Sources said the schools with a single teacher totaled 250 with the number of students in six classes being from 40 to 150.

They said several complaints about the shortage of teachers were made to the education department but no corrective measures had been made.

The sources said the primary schools had over 500 vacant posts of teachers for more than a year but the education department had yet to fill them.

Nabeel Ahmad of Ghulamabad Nartopa area said his locality had a primary school for boys but there was only one visiting teacher.

He said the school had three teachers but two of them were transferred to the schools of their choice, while the third one retired in Oct leaving the school without teachers.

The resident said the department posted two teachers but they also got themselves posted to the schools of their choice and since then, the department didn’t appoint any teachers.

“As a temporary arrangement, a teacher from the Government Primary School, Pharhari, comes to the school daily to teach the KG-5th graders,” he said.

PML-N leader Sajjad Khan criticised the government over the schoolteachers’ vacancies and said things in the education sector had worsened since the PTI had assumed power in the province.

He told Dawn that the serious shortage of teaching staff in schools not only wasted the students’ time but it caused many to drop out as well. The PML-N leader demanded the appointment of teachers to schools in adequate numbers. District officer (education) Umar Khan Kundi was not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2018