PESHAWAR, May 11: Government schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa continue to face shortage of teachers despite large-scale appointments to them over the last four years, said provincial elementary and secondary education Sardar Hussain Babak on Friday.

Responding to a call attention notice in the provincial assembly, the minister said the government had appointed around 29,000 teachers to government schools during the last four years but shortage of teachers was still there.

MPA Saqibullah Khan, who moved the call attention notice, criticised performance of the education department and said the department lacked planning and vision. He complained of a great shortage of science teachers and primary teachers in schools and urged the government to give top priority to development of education sector.

He said provision of free education was the constitutional right of every citizen and therefore, the government should take necessary steps for it at the earliest.

The MPA suggested that education department compile computerised data of teachers and students.

Mr Babak said the government was building new schools and taking steps to overcome shortage of teachers, while appointment of more teachers was on the cards. He said limited financial resources were hampering recruitment of teachers in schools.

Replying to a point of order, the education minister told the House that a departmental inquiry would be conducted into the errors in textbooks published by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Text Board, Peshawar, while explanation would be sought from all relevant officers for these errors.

He said grammatical and other errors in social studies books for grade V students would be identified and that the education department would issue directives to schools to remove them.

In response to a point of order, the minister denied any change in Islamiat textbooks and said the government had no plans to delete any sura i.e. Quranic verse and hadith i.e. traditions of Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him), from these books.

Through a call attention notice, MPA Sardar Aurangzeb Nalota drew the House’s attention towards leopard attacks on villagers in Abbottabad and said wild animals had killed dozens of peoples and cattle in the district.

He said the attacks had worried local people and despite the lodging of complains, the wildlife department didn’t take steps for the safety of villagers. He demanded payment of compensation for families affected by such attacks.

Environment minister Wajid Ali Khan acknowledged that rapid growth in leopard population in Hazara region was threatening life of local communities and said his department’s steps to conserve wild animals fast increased their population over the years and that many of these animals migrated to forest covered areas in Islamabad.

He also said several pairs of leopards were freed in the National Park of Ayubia, while animals had moved towards villages. He said the families whose members were attacked by wild animals would be paid compensation.

Meanwhile, deputy speaker Khushdil Khan, who was presiding proceedings, directed all line departments to clear dues of newspapers within a month to prevent action.

He gave the ruling after information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said newspapers’ refusal to publish government advertisements due to non-payment of dues had caused delay in execution of development projects in many areas of the province. The minister the line departments released advertisements to various newspapers but didn’t pay the relevant charges to the information department to clear their dues.

The House also passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act, 2012, which will be applicable to 12 universities of the province.

The law is aimed at ‘reconstituting and reorganising universities established or to be established by the provincial government to further improve their governance and management by ensuring accountability, transparency and giving due representation to all stakeholders in decision making so as to enhance the quality of higher education in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.’

Higher education minister Qazi Asad tabled the bill. The proposed amendments of MPA Israrullah Gandapur were rejected by the House after the speaker put them to vote.