KARACHI: The provincial education authorities on Wednesday informed the Sindh High Court that 6,866 schools were closed across the province for lack of teachers but they would be reopened after new recruitment of the teaching staff within four months.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Ali Mazhar directed the education and literacy department to file a compliance report.

When the bench took up a set of petitions mainly seeking implementation of the Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013 for hearing, an assistant advocate general submitted a statement on behalf of the secretary of the school education and literacy department.

It has showed a district-wise summary of the ‘viable’ closed schools and vacant posts of teaching staff.

Education authorities claim the appointment of PSTs and JESTs will be completed in four months

It also said that 7,974 government schools in the province were ‘non-viable’, because of similar facilities nearby.

The statement said that the viable closed schools would be opened through new recruitment of teachers as a policy had been notified and published for recruitment of Primary School Teachers (PSTs) and Junior Elementary School Teachers (JESTs).

The chief programme manager of the education and literacy department undertook that the entire process would be completed within four months.

While taking the statement on record, the bench directed the department to submit a compliance report accordingly.

The bench observed that in totality various compliance reports had been submitted from time to time and asked the counsel for petitioners to go through all the reports and point out if the timeline given in the reports had been complied with for further direction of the bench.

Show-cause notices

The same bench on Wednesday issued show-cause notices to the senior director, Karachi Zoo, and a representative of the wildlife conservator over their absence during the hearing of a petition against functioning of Karachi Zoological Gardens.

On the last hearing, both the officials were directed to be in attendance on March 10.

On Wednesday, they did not turn up and the bench issued show-cause notices to them for March 18 to explain why they failed to appear before it.

The petitioners moved the SHC stating that the condition of animals being kept at the zoo was alarming and the lives of the creatures were at risk.

They argued that animals’ hygiene, food requirements and health conditions were severely neglected and they were being kept in very small cages. The condition of captivity at the zoo amounted to criminal treatment of living beings.

Food secretary summoned

The bench on Wednesday also expressed dissatisfaction over a reply of the provincial food secretary filed on a petition about shortage of wheat in the province and summoned him for April 29.

An entomologist of the national food security ministry requested for further time to file a reply.

The petitioner had submitted that the flour crisis in the province had resulted because of the smuggling of wheat and flour from Sindh to Afghanistan.

He said the people continued to be forced to purchase flour at a much inflated rate.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2021