PESHAWAR: Pathetic state of govt education system irks PHC CJ

Taking suo moto notice of poor performance of the government-run schools and colleges in the province, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday directed the provincial chief secretary and other officials to present complete record of the teachers and lecturers who had enrolled their own children in private educational institutions. A two-member bench of Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth took the notice in a writ petition by Salma Naila, a teacher at the Municipal Inter-College for Women, seeking her promotion from BPS-16 to BPS-17. The bench issued notices to the chief secretary and secretaries for Higher Education Department, Schools and Literacy Department and Secondary and Elementary Education Department and directed them to produce complete record of those teachers and lecturers within two months who were teaching in government educational institutions but had enrolled their own children in private institutions. During hearing of the case, the chief justice observed: “How the education system will improve when government teachers were enrolling their own children in private schools and colleges?” “Though the government was spending billions of rupees on the government schools and colleges, there was no improvement in the government’s educational system. The teachers are not taking interest in educating students as their own children are getting education in private schools,” the chief justice observed, adding that the court would link their promotion and upgrading to performance and enrolment of their children in government schools. He said the annual performance of the government schools and colleges was not improving even by one step. Salma Naila had claimed in the petition that she was appointed as teacher in BPS-16 in the Municipal Inter-college for Women on November 6, 1996 and wasn’t promoted to BPS-17 after 16 years while 19 other junior teachers were upgraded to BPS-17.