LAHORE, Jan 27: Punjab Education Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman says there are some 4,000 posts lying vacant in colleges in the province.

Despite such a shortfall of teachers, he says, there is a 1-40 teacher-student ratio in colleges in the province.

The minister said this during a question hour in the Punjab Assembly on Friday.

Mr Rehman faced a tough time from the treasury which billed his answers either irrelevant or wrong.

Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q) forward bloc’s Sheikh Allauddin wanted to know about colleges in the province that had less number of students than faculty members. The minister had no exact figures. He said there might be a couple of such colleges in remote areas.

Mr Allauddin claimed there were 29 such colleges in Punjab where teachers outnumbered students. According to him, government’s policy to open such colleges (on political consideration) was wastage of money and nothing else.

Mr Rehman asked Mr Allauddin to inform him about such colleges so that he could initiate an action against the officials.

PML-N’s Zamurad Yasmin, Mian Naseer and Nighat Nasir Sheikh rejected the minister’s answers regarding the Quaid-i-Azam Public Library and the Punjab Public Library affairs.

The education minister said the government would open public libraries in every union council.Responding to questions about the marking system, which were submitted in August and November in 2009, the minister informed the house that education boards in Punjab had introduced online and computerised system to discourage unfair means in examination centres and boards.

After the question hour, the law minister introduced the Punjab Local Government (amendment) Bill of 2012 to provide legal cover to administrative and financial network in the new districts and tehsils.

Soon after the introduction of amendment bill, PPP’s Faiza Malik pointed quorum that broke the proceedings.

Deputy Speaker Rana Mashood adjourned the proceedings till Monday as the number of members in the house could not exceed 50.