As many as 12 primary school teachers in Dera Ghazi Khan were suspended from their jobs on Wednesday for prolonged absence. District government officials said an inquiry had been started against 18 other teachers who also did not report to the schools in the last few months.
District Education Officer Abdul Mateen said that 30 schools had remained closed due to the absence of teachers for the last four to six months. He said the teachers had been receiving their salaries. He said students had stopped coming to school a few weeks after their teachers stopped coming to work.
He said these were small schools and ran on a one-teacher system with one teacher appointed for each school. District Coordination Officer Iftikhar Ali Sahu told The Express Tribune that the 12 teachers who had been sacked had confessed to their negligence. He said other in question were being investigated. Similar action will be taken against them if found guilty.
Residents of the area see have demanded that schools be continuously monitored. They said teachers in the area had made a habit of absence from work, but take salaries regularly. They alleged that some of the teachers enjoyed the support of the education officers and that the teachers had had some kind of settlement with them.
Deputy District Education Office Kausar Bukhari denied the allegations. He said the department had record of all raids and reports submitted both to the district government and the department. He said he was leading the investigation against the teachers.
District and Sessions Judge Wajahat Hussain, the Supreme Court’s focal person for school education in Dera Ghazi Khan, took a notice of the allegations. He has sought a report from the Education Department and district government officers by March 11.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 7th, 2013.