LAHORE: A serious shortage of teachers has been reported in government schools across Punjab, affecting regular educational activities. According to sources, there is a shortage of around 40,000 teachers in public schools across the province.
Secretary School Education, Khalid Nazir Wattoo, confirmed the shortage and said that the issue will be addressed soon. He announced that the Punjab government is planning to hire new School Teacher Interns (STIs) in August, after the announcement of the new budget.
He further said that the current batch of STIs will complete their term on May 30, and the process to recruit a new batch has already been planned.
The number of teachers in Punjab schools has been going down in recent years because many teachers have retired, been transferred, or no new teachers were hired. This has increased the workload on the current teachers and is harming the quality of education in many schools.
The new hiring of School Teacher Interns (STIs) is expected to reduce this problem. The education department hopes that this step will help fill the gap and improve students’ learning in schools across the province.
Meanwhile, Punjab’s education department is also going through a major reform process, as the government has started outsourcing thousands of public schools to private individuals and organizations. So far, around 10,000 government schools have been handed over to private parties in two phases — 6,000 in the first phase and over 4,000 in the second.
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According to official documents, all teaching posts in these 10,000 outsourced schools have been removed, which means around 44,000 government teacher positions have been abolished. Teachers who were posted in these schools were asked to apply for transfers within ten days. If they fail to do so, their jobs will be considered ended, as their posts no longer exist.
This large-scale outsourcing has also led to protests by teachers and several legal cases, which are still pending in court.
