SIALKOT, May 11: Sialkot has been listed fourth among Punjab’s all 34 districts as far as absence of teachers from public schools is concerned in a survey conducted under the Punjab Chief Minister’s Education Sector Reforms Programme.

This was disclosed by DCO Maj Rizwan Ullah Baig (retired) at a meeting of senior officials of the district education department.

The meeting was also attended by DO (Coordination) Aamir Ejaz Akbar, EDO (Finance) Rana Azhar Ali, District Monitoring Officer Nadeem Sarwar, Deputy Director Information Malik Ghulam Abbas.

The DCO said the survey showed that the district education department’s high-ups had miserably failed to over come the menace of larger-scale absence of male and female teachers appointed at the government schools.

Taking serious notice of the situation, the DCO ordered suspension of 37 male and female ‘habitual absentee’ teachers for avoiding their officials duties without any justification, besides stopping their salaries. He also ordered a departmental probe against the suspended teachers under the Removal from the Service Act.

District Monitoring Officer Nadeem Sarwar told the meeting that the Government Boys Primary School Kaseerey, Markaz Daallowali, had been finally closed due to non-availability of teachers. He said there was only one Educator teacher for the 25 students of the school, who too was illegally transferred, as the post was non-transferable. He said school’s closure was violative of the Punjab government’s policy of making operational all the non-functioning schools in the province.

Later, talking to newsmen, the DMO said out of the total 2,852 government schools in the district, as many as 50 had been lying closed due to non-availability of teachers for the last several years.

He said the Girls High School Looni-Bajwat and the boys’ primary school at Olakh Awan, lying closed for several years, had been converted into cattle sheds. These schools, ironically, are located in the electoral constituency of National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Ameer Hussain.

The DCO also ordered officials concerned to take steps to make functional Bajwat’s primary schools.

EDO (Education) Dr Saif Ullah Cheema understandably remained absent from the meeting. — Correspondent