Search Page

Sindh Education Department has launched an investigation after a primary school teacher in Pakistan was granted maternity leave three times in a single year. Corruption and negligence in the Government education sector are widespread in Sindh with many cases of ghost schools and teachers. A video revealed a state primary school in Mirpurkhas only existed on paper. Salaries were disbursed monthly to fictitious faculty, while the school grounds housed animals.

Poverty, the rising rate of early dropouts, ghost schools and teachers, low pass rates in the JEST test for primary school teachers are just some of the factors at the heart of the education crisis in Sindh. The biometric mechanism put in place by the Sindh government proved to be counterproductive and has failed to compel ghost teachers to attend school: 6.5 million children are currently out of school.

Sindh Education Curriculum Department has decided to shut down 10,000 “not viable” or inactive schools across the province. The Supreme Court has issued orders to shut down ghost schools and act against teachers who have been receiving salaries without performing their duties.

An investigation at Baltimore city school found that administrators schemed to inflate enrollment, pressured teachers to change grades and scheduled students into classes that didn’t exist. Over a three-year period, about 100 students remained on the rolls but didn’t attend the school. The school operated evening and summer courses designed to allow students to make up credits, but the courses didn’t meet standards. In some cases, unqualified teachers were assigned to teach the classes, and in other cases, staff members were named as teachers of record for a class they never taught.

The World Bank has suspended the first tranche of $100 million in a programme to fund free schools in DR Congo after a November report found fake invoices, lists of teachers filled with fake names at non-existent schools, and alleged embezzlement of 63 billion Congolese francs ($31 million). Two senior officials, including the head of teachers’ payroll, are in pre-trial detention.

About 22,556 ghost workers were discovered in local government pay system in Borno after two verifications exercises on local government staff and primary teachers. Reports show that N183.6m has been recovered in bogus teacher’s salary while N237m from ghost local government staff. The total number of primary school teachers in the 27 local government areas was 26,450 before the verification, however, 2, 204 did not appear before the committee.

A social activist alleged that large-scale corruption was being carried out in the District Education Office and nine girls’ schools in Bazgarha, Kamarkhel are locked. Dozens of female teachers of these closed schools are still receiving salaries at home, but paying a considerable portion of their salaries as a bribe to specific frontmen of the District Education Office. According to local sources, this practice of mismanagement is continuing since 2015.

Ghost teachers and ghost schools are a burden on the education system in rural areas of Balochistan and the government needs to take concrete steps to repair the damage that is caused to its children and their future. Most public schools lack basic facilities like boundary walls, chairs, toilets, clean drinking water, electricity, and even teachers, not to mention the absence of study material like course-books and other infrastructural needs. Authorities continue to pay teachers despite their wilful absence and a great number of them are hired based on political affiliation rather than their qualification and educational achievements.

In a 100-page detailed judgement regarding the condition of government schools, Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry said that a study – conducted by Basic Education Community Schools (BECS) Project in 2012-2013 through a third party validation team hired by the gover..