BAHAWALNAGAR: After the surfacing of a free textbooks scandal in the Basic Education Community Schools a couple weeks ago, BECS teachers from Pakpattan and Okara say the embezzlement has been going on since long.

Javed Iqbal, a BECS official from Pakpattan, was caught from Minchinabad (Bahawalnagar) on Dec 23 last, selling a huge quantity of `not-for-sale’ textbooks for the 2021-2022 session (for grade 1 to 3 students) at a scrap shop.

Minchinabad police arrested him and seized 3,500 textbooks issued by the Punjab Curriculum Textbook Board (PCTB) on the complaint of the School Education Department.

He was sent to the district jail after his bail plea was rejected by a civil court of Minchinabad on Dec 28.

A number of community schoolteachers belonging to Pakpattan and Okara districts told Dawn on condition of anonymity that they were either forced to buy books from the market or they had to pay between Rs 1,000 to 1,500 to district coordinators for years in the name of expenses incurred to deliver books from the warehouse.

They alleged that they were threatened with closure of their centers if they went public over the issue. They alleged that a Faisalabad-based senior official had advised them to cooperate with the coordinators, whereas the Islamabad head office had also paid no heed to their complaints.

They said that they received a meagre amount of Rs 8,000 per month as salary which was paid after a several months gap. “With such a low salary, they are forced to buy books, mats and whiteboards for children,” said a teacher.

Ms Abida, a BECS teacher from Arifwala (Pakpattan district), said three years ago more than 160 BECS teachers of Pakpattan district were forced to pay Rs 1,500 each to coordinator Javed Iqbal (now arrested) to get free textbooks and this practice was also repeated in December 2021.

She alleged the textbooks meant for BECS were sold at different shops in Pakpattan for years, adding mats and whiteboards had never been distributed among the teachers despite repeated requests during the last decade.

Several BECS teachers from Okara, including Bushra Shaheen, Azra Perveen, Shakila Kausar, Neelam Shehzadi, Abida Razzaq, Ghulam Mohayuddin and district president of BECS teachers association (Okara) Ms Hafsa Zafar told Dawn that after the cancellation of the MoU between an NGO with the BECS about 11 years ago, some officials, including Javed Iqbal and two others, who were supposed to monitor and supervise community schools, started an endless series of corruption in connivance with a Faisalabad official.

Ms Hafsa alleged that she had also complained several times to the Deputy Director (Admin) Islamabad Ednan Asif but got no response.

The teachers said that they were ready to present irrefutable evidence if the authorities dared to conduct a transparent inquiry into the matter.

The Faisalabad-based official blamed by teachers said he had intimated the Islamabad head office about the incident and now it was up to them to take action. He admitted that teachers were facing salary issues but denied his involvement in any wrongdoing. He said whiteboards and books were being sent to all BECS schoold in Pakpattan and Okara.

Contrary to his claim, Okara BECS Assistant Director Yasmeen said that they had not received whiteboards from the head office for the past 10 years. She said that they received textbooks almost after three years which were delivered to teachers in time.

DD (Admin) Ednan Asif said that no one had contacted him over the issue but resolved to address it on a priority basis by informing the Director General (DG) BECS Wasim Ajmal Ch.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2022