PESHAWAR, Feb 19: The NWFP government decision to recruit 5,500 primary school teachers instead of its earlier announced plan of inducting about 8,000 during the current financial year would adversely affect its intended move to bring down the students-teacher ratio to a desirable level in a period of three years, according to official sources.

At the start of the current financial year, the provincial government had announced to recruit about 8,000 primary school teachers as part of its plan to bring down the students-teacher ratio to a desirable level.

The province has an estimated teacher:students ratio of 1:40 - which is considered to be on a higher side in comparison with the international standards, according to the sources.

The last military-backed civil government in the province had chalked out a plan to recruit about 24,000 additional primary school teachers to bring down the ratio to 1:30 in an attempt to improve education standards making it possible for teachers to properly pay attention to all students.

Keeping in view the importance of the intended move of the previous government, said the sources, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, after coming into power in the NWFP following the Oct 2002 polls, decided to pursue the goal of bringing down the teacher: students ratio to 1:30 in a three-year time.

However, the provincial government, said the sources, had to change the decision after being moved against recruiting 8,000 primary school teachers by a leading international lending agency.

"Change in the original recruitment plan would certainly cause negative impact to the intended move of bringing down the teacher: students ratio as under the current circumstances it may take the provincial government more than five years to achieve the target which it was eying to get in a three-year time," said a development planner of the province.

The government changed its mind to appoint 5,500 primary school teachers instead of 8,000 because of financial implications involved in recruiting higher number of teachers.

According to the sources, government's monthly salary bill would have experienced an overall increase of Rs24 million in case of inducting 8,000 primary school teachers. It would have thus effected an increase in the annual salary bill by Rs288 million, raising it to a new height.

According to official record, the NWFP has a total number of enrolled students of about 2.1 million at the primary education level involving a total of 22,668 primary schools and some 60,400 teachers.

The province has recently chalked out a plan to enrol around 1.5 million more children - of the age group of five to nine - by the end of 2015 to bring down the ratio of 'out-of-the-schools-children' to zero level in the NWFP.

"This would further aggravate provincial government's requirements to induct thousands of more teachers failing which its draft plan of education for all by 2015 would end up in a fiasco," apprehended an official of the education department.