Balochistan cleansed of ghost teachers; claims secretary

Quetta, May 23 (APP):Secretary Education Balochistan Noor-ul-Haq Baloch on Wednesday claimed that the province was hundred per cent cleansed of ghost teachers and strict action was being taken against irregular ones.
Talking to APP he said the government’s Real Time School Monitoring System introduced in 2016 had bore fruitful results and the teachers were now showing punctuality, which also helped improve education standard in the province as well.
“Every ghost teacher has been traced and terminated from the job and the government is tightening noose on those who remain irregular.” He added.
He said since RTSM’s inception the government had deducted Rs60 million from the salaries of irregular teachers as fine and those who remained on willful absence for more than 15 days had been terminated after completing legal formalities.
Noor said the system was so impartial and transparent that, “A minister’s wife was also terminated due to absence from the duty for years”.
To a question, he informed that there were a number of non-functional schools locating in suburb areas of the province due to lack of staffers.
The secretary said some 8,000 teachers were planned to be recruited to overcome shortage of staff in 32 districts’ schools, however, due to the apex court’s ban on fresh jobs, its implementation was in pending.
The Balochistan government had also finalized a plan to establish 500 community schools at far flung districts to reduce illiteracy ratio and to bring revolutionary changes in the underprivileged society, he said.
He said community’s involvement was only solution to increase literacy ratio and ensure quality education to the children at par with other provinces. Initiation of Parents Teachers School Meeting Committee (PTSMCs) in all schools, he said, was a step to improve collaboration in this regard.
Education was top priority of the incumbent government, therefore, it was using all possible resources to bring improvement in this sector, he added.