Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said he is keen to improve education system by returning teachers to class rooms, developing their capacity through trainings and completely removing ghost teachers.

He was presiding over a meeting on education department at New Secretariat on Tuesday. The meeting was attended by Minister Education Jam Mehtab Dahar, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Secretary Education Fazal Pechuho, Principal Secretary to CM Naveed Kamran Baloch, Secretary Finance Hassan Naqvi and others.

He said commented on ghost teachers in education department. “This is enough now, block it completely and take action against those who are keeping them alive on the pay role,” he directed secretary education. On this the secretary said that he had launched bio-metric system through which all the ghost employees have been ward off.

The chief minister said that he wanted school-specific recruitment of teachers so that shortage of teaching staff where needed could be met. “In some schools there are more teachers than requirement in some other there is shortage,” he said and directed the secretary education to rationalize transfer postings in the larger interest of school educations.

Murad Ali Shah said that the teachers must take their classes, this is only way to improve literacy rate. “It becomes the responsibility of education department to return teachers to the class rooms not forcibly but voluntarily,” he said and added “otherwise start giving schools to IBA and such other well-reputed organisations to run them with their own teaching staff for which Sindh government would be giving them funds.

On the request of Minister Education Jam Mehtab Dahar, the chief minister directed chief secretary to given some DMG and PCs officers to education department for running school administration. “I have declared emergency in education but still I am not satisfied of the results,” he deplored.

The chief minister urged the minister education to focus on teachers training. “The communication and teaching skills of our teachers must be strong enough,” he said and added that the teachers must know that punishment runs away children from school.  “Now teaching methods have been changed and we have to adopt them,” he said.

In the meeting it was pointed out that the working women hostel of Women Development Department in Shaheed Benazirabad had been occupied by police to house DIG office. The chief minister directed chief secretary to talk to IG police and get the hostel vacated.