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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.

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.

In 2018 an audit conducted to review the Basic Education Community Schools program authorized by the Public Accounts Committee revealed over 2000 ghost schools on paper but no teacher on record. Several years have passed and new cases have been reported. Yet criminals continue to embezzle money to bribe government officials to allow fake teachers to keep fake jobs and usurp salaries of honest teachers and deserving students.

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.

287,000 ghost students were found registered in schools under the Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) programme. Schools, government officials, and NGOs are suspected to be involved in the preparation of a fake record Rs1.1 billion per year. A special audit of the funds received by PEF is being conducted and strict measures will be taken against the officers involved in this corruption case.

The Provincial Inspection Team (PIT) detected embezzled amount of Rs19.4 million from just 24 Iqra Farogh-e-Taleem Voucher Scheme (IFTVS) schools in Mansehra instead of the 89 schools registered by the KP government. The Provincial Bureau of Statistics (BOS) survey identified 23,071 out of schoolchildren for their enrolment in district Mansehra. However, the PIT inquiry found, “the data collected by BOS was erroneous as per 100% validation by district programme officer only 4,183 students were physically available, whereas the PIT also found a huge variation in the data.”

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.