218 teaching posts are vacant in 90 govt schools: Fafen

Islamabad, Out of the authorized 2,246 teaching positions for 90 government girl’s secondary schools monitored across 61 districts in October, 218 were found vacant having vacancy rate of 10 percent, according to Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) report.
 
The report released on Wednesday pointed out that Sindh had the highest percentage of vacant teaching positions (22 percent), followed by Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (8 percent each) and Punjab (5 percent).
 
Fafen observers reported that on average 7 percent non-teaching slots were also not filled in Punjab (11 percent), Balochistan (8 percent), Sindh (5 percent) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (5 percent).
 
As for certain non-teaching staff, 20 percent schools don’t have services of sanitary workers, 17 percent had no watchmen with 2 percent without peons.
 
31 percent schools had no Physical Training Instructors and 38% lacked playgrounds. Similarly, 33 percent were without apparatus for conducting science experiments while 42 percent don’t  have libraries.
 
However, all schools were pointed out of proper buildings; 99 percent had windows, lights and black/white boards in classrooms; 93 percent had chairs and tables for teachers and 90 percent had benches and desks for students.
 
The monitors found students-per-teacher ratio of 30 as satisfactory and below the government-set limit, which is 50. Among regions, Islamabad Capital Territory had the highest number of students per teacher (42), followed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (39), Sindh (33), Punjab (27) and Balochistan (21).
 
The teachers’ and students’ attendance was above 75 percent in more than four-fifths of the monitored schools. However, the observers reported teachers’ attendance being below 50 per cent in a Sindh school while students’ attendance was this low in two schools in Sindh and one in Balochistan.