TAXILA: Despite tall claims made by successive governments to reform the education sector, nothing seems to have improved.

The Government Primary School No 1 in Hassanabdal is one example to show the priority rulers have given to the education sector.

A matriculate teacher is serving as the head of the school which has a number of graduate teachers.

The school is located in the heart of the city near Gurdwara Punja Sahib and caters to localities in the downtown area.

At present, around 260 students are enrolled in the school which has five teachers, including a woman and three auxiliary staff known as Class-IV.

The head teacher is supposed to supervise the academic and non-academic staff. But the irony is that the school head, Zaman Ali, is just a matriculate and supervises the other teaching staff with graduate degrees.

Mohammad Nafees, a Class-IV, who works as a peon, watchman and dispatch rider of the school, has an intermediate level education. A teacher possessing a BEd degree is teaching the students under the supervision of the matriculate head.

“This is an example of appointment and hiring of staff based on their political affiliations. A matriculate has been appointed to supervise the teaching and non-teaching staff, including the peon who is more educated than him,” a source told this correspondent.

He said due to a tussle between the staff, unpleasant scenes were frequently witnessed in the school in front of minor students which left a bad impression on their minds.

“The teachers and the school head often exchange heated arguments and abuse each other over different issues such as casual leave in classrooms,” said the father of a class-V student

He said such an exchange of abuses in front of children impact negatively on the mind of the minors. He said higher officials of the education department should take notice of the matter.

The slogans of “Naya Pakistan” and “change” by the present government are mere eyewash as things are still working in the same way they used to be in the past,” said Asim Meer, the president of a local NGO working in the education sector.

He said hypocrisy of the leadership and management could be judged from the fact that a person having low educational qualification than a peon had been appointed as the head of a school.

When contacted, Deputy District Education Officer Zulfiqar Raja admitted that a matriculate teacher was working as the head of the school.

Mr Raja said he had issued a directive in the past to appoint some more educated and experienced teacher as the head of the school but no one was willing to assume the charge. He said he would take up the matter with the district education authorities.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2018