49pc teachers in Sindh unable to read story in Urdu: report

The 49 per cent teachers in Sindh public schools are unable to read a story in Urdu (text meant for class 2 students), 62 per cent cannot read a sentence in English and 58 per cent cannot even do two digit division, while 52 per cent schools in Sindh are without electricity, 51 per cent are without drinking water, 46 per cent are without toilets and 43 per cent are without boundary walls. Some 44 per cent girls schools are without toilets and 30 per cent without boundary walls. The condition of buildings of 71 per cent schools is not satisfactory which is astonishing in this age of competition, says a survey conducted by NGO Alif Ailaan.

There are 42,342 primary schools, 2,336 middle schools, 1,752 secondary schools, 294 higher secondary schools, 9,094 girls schools and 38,336 boys and mixed schools in Sindh province. The number of teachers in the province is 1,45,438, out of which 92,521 are in primary schools, 11,980 in middle schools, 32,194 in secondary schools, 8,743 in higher secondary schools. Of the total teachers, 45,116 are females and 100,322 are males, the report says.

According to the data collected by NGO Alif Ailaan, 33 per cent primary schools have single classroom and 46 per cent primary schools are with single teacher which is a slap on the face of those who always claim that everything has become alright in education department as they have completely failed to provide required infrastructure, facilities and security to the future of this nation.

According to Alif Ailaan’s District Education Rankings (DER) 2015, wherein it has opined that some uncomfortable truths emerge, notably, from the provincial representatives, current Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, a seven-time winner from Khairpur, has badly failed in improving the education rankings in his district which stands at 98 out of 148 districts of the country. The DER of Larkana, home district of Sindh Education Minister Nisar Khuhro, is 82, better than the home district of Sindh CM.

Larkana’s education score during 2015 remained 62.38, enrollment score remained 71.61, learning score remained 36.57, retention score remained 74.41 and gender parity score remained 66.96. These figures are revealing and enough for the concerned authorities to awake at once and do concretely on now or never basis otherwise it will be very late for which they will be accused of keeping the people of Sindh illiterate.