UPPER DIR: The only government college for girls in Upper Dir has been facing shortage of teachers as 10 posts are vacant at the institution, creating hurdles to students to complete their courses.

Almost 1,000 girls are enrolled in the college and 500 of them are students of intermediate classes. However, the posts of lecturers of 10 subjects including English, zoology, botany, Pakistan Studies, statistic, economic, history, political science, physics and home economics have been vacant at the college since long.

The college administration has also announced to start Bachelor of Science (BS) degree programme for the students but only in two subjects -- Chemistry and Islamiat.

A large number of students of other subjects, which have not been included in the BS programme, said that their future at stake. They said that they came to college but their time was wasted owing to shortage of lecturers of the relevant subjects. “No one is present to teach to us,” they said, adding that they passed most of the time in playing games.

Some of the students said that they were coming from far off areas of the district to the college but could not attend classes owing to shortage of teachers. They said that it was waste of both their time and money.

They said that apart from shortage of teaching staff, the college was also short of buses. They said that there was only one bus for the transportation of students. They demanded of the administration to provide more buses to them.

The principal of the college, when contacted, said that they couldn’t launch BS programme in other subjects except Chemistry and Islamiat owing to shortage of lecturers. She said that they were trying their best to teach to the students. She added that the existing teachers also tried to teach other subjects to the students along with their own ones.

However, she said that it was difficult for the teachers to teach other subjects to the students. She said that government should resolve the issue of shortage of lecturers before the start of next session.

The parents of the students also demanded of the government of start BS programmes in more subjects and depute teachers at the college to save the future of their daughters.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2018