KARACHI: Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah on Tuesday informed the provincial assembly that services of as many as 1,324 teachers, who had remained absent for three consecutive months or more, were terminated by the education department as a form of major punishment.

While furnishing statement and replies to the lawmakers’ written and verbal queries during Question Hour of the Sindh Assembly, he said that there were over 56,000 ‘habitual absentee’ teachers who attended schools either once or twice in a month.

He said 885 teachers were given minor penalties such as censure and forfeiting of increment.

To a supplementary question, he said that 50 per cent students were out of schools as around 19,000 schools had been completely damaged during the last year’s floods.

To another question, the minister said that the government was working on expansion of the National Information Technology Board Application (NITB) for attendance of teachers across the province.

He said that currently, the NITB app was being used in seven districts including Hyderabad, Matiari, Kashmore and Qambar-Shahdadkot on a pilot basis.

To a verbal question, he said that over 19,000 schools were completely damaged and 613 computer labs had been destroyed across the province by the flood.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2023