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.

The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) arrested three secondary school teachers for their involvement in taking bribes and making fake appointments based on fake degrees in the Punjab Education Department. Some influential political figures have made efforts to obtain the release of arrested teachers, but have failed due to ACE’s investigation into this issue.

Education Department officials in northern Balkh province announced that ghost teachers and other employees appointed based on fraud and forgery would no longer receive pay and other privileges. 14 925 teachers and workers have been covered since the introduction of the biometric system, and from now on salaries will be paid upon completing legal procedures.

A science teacher is accused of working in 25 Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya simultaneously for 13 months and taking home approximately Rs 1 crore as salary. The police arrested one of the multiple persons impersonating the science teacher, using her academic records. The minister of education ordered a probe into the records of all 746 residential schools for girls. A First Information Report on the charges of dishonesty, cheating by impersonation, forgery of valuable security, forgery for purpose of cheating, using a forged document, was lodged against her.

The elementary and secondary education department has terminated the services of 104 teachers and other employees in the merged tribal districts for securing jobs on fake degrees or absenting themselves from duty for a long time during the last two decades. The department of education will examine the academic degrees and certificates of all employees in tribal districts.

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.