MITHI, Dec 16: The people of Thar have expressed serious concern and dissatisfaction over the ill-conceived and flawed policies in the education department owing to which the quality of education is deteriorating day by day.
Some of the locals, interviewed by this correspondent, pointed out that Tharparkar was the only district of Sindh province where about 250 boys’ middle schools had been functioning since the last three decades without buildings and staff.
They said that a primary teacher had to impart education to students from class I to VIII.
A retired academician said that these so-called schools, which had neither building, nor furniture nor teaching staff, had not been opened to ameliorate the standard of education in Thar but some vested interests and “anti-education sahibs” opened these schools years ago, and added that a supervisor primary education or SDEO could be richly rewarded by visiting these schools.
He said the opening of several schools had proved to be a golden goose for the sahibs of the education department as the more the number of schools, the more the “rewards”.
The modus operandi being used by the officials of the education department in Tharparkar can be gauged from a eight-paged booklet “Sindh Education Profile” 1999-2000, published by the education department, Government of Sindh, in which Tharparkar District has been published as Mithi in every page, which proves that the officials of the education department are totally unaware of the geographical and historical locus standi of Thar.
The question arises here as to how could the officers and compilers of the said profile claim that the statistics of schools’ enrolment is accurate.
According to the said profile, in 1999, there were a total of 3,317 schools with 78,319 enrolments. Further particulars show, there existed 2,719 male primary schools and 308 female primary schools with 44,602 and 20,146 enrolment respectively. Middle schools (male) 252 with 5,376 boys, middle schools (female) merely 12 with 1,097 girls on the role; 22 boys high school with 5,884 students and four female high schools with 1,214 girls.
It is astonishing that contradictory figures pertaining to schools, enrolment and other facilities were communicated by the local offices of the education department.
When this correspondent apprised the executive district officer (education), Abdul Majid Hurr, about the varying figures quoted by his subordinates, he elucidated that these officials received such figures through the supervisors of primary schools, which could not be relied upon, however, a survey was being carried out for collecting all the particulars.
Keeping in view the statistics of 1999 and 2001, it is observed that the number of (male) primary schools which was 2,719 in 1999 has gone down to 2,519.
The enrolment of girls in primary schools, which was 20,146 in 1999, has dropped to half, i.e. 10,668 in 2001. The enrolment of boys at middle schools was 5,376 in 252 middle schools but has reduced to 3,830 boys in 63 middle schools in 2001.
According to the figures at some of these offices, 1,363 (1,155 for males, 208 for females) schools were functioning without any government building under the open sky.
Meanwhile, 177 schools (127 for males and 50 for females) have remained closed. Most of these schools are without furniture, water, electricity, toilets, compound walls and other accessories besides an acute shortage of teachers.