School Education Department Secretary, Jamal Mustafa Syed, has given a period of one month to both regional directors (primary and secondary along with five DEOs (District Education Officers) Larkana, Qambar Shahdadkot, Shikarpur, Kashmore and Jacobabad to take a proper disciplinary action against absent and absconder teachers.
He directed this while chairing the 1st Regional Follow-Up meeting for Larkana. The meeting was attended by Special Secretary (Schools) Aaliya Shahid and Zakir Hussain Shah, director general, Monitoring and Evaluation Zubair Ahmed Channa, additional and deputy secretaries.
He directed the secretaries and representatives to issue show-cause notices to absent and absconder teachers, review their responses, arrange in-person hearing and then decide in accordance with rules. “Any lapse on this regard will not be tolerated”, he said.
During the review of issues of districts in Larkana division last month, 1893 absconder and 2937 absent teachers were identified, and the secretary advised concerned officers to initiate a disciplinary action against them.
Sharing a progress report on district Larkana, the director (Primary) informed the meeting that he had issued show-cause notices to 365 absconder teachers out of 398, but he did not serve the same to absent teachers, whose number runs into 671. Upon a query from the secretary, he promised to do so soon.
The director secondary claimed that she had served show-cause notices to all absconder and absent teachers, 183 and 451 respectively, in district Larkana.
With regard to district Jacobabad where 603 are absconder and 737 absent teachers representing primary and secondary, the directors claimed that they had taken action against more than 80 percent absent and absconder teachers.
The representatives of district Qambar Shahdadkot were absent.
Shikarpur and Kashmore officials claimed that there were no absent and absconder teachers in their district.
The secretary also reviewed progress report against temporary and permanent closed schools in the region. According to the reports, at least there are 467 temporary and 437 permanent schools closed in Larkana region.
The secretary suggested that all the officials should work for the betterment of education with dedication and commitment.
He said that the work is a noble cause and directed the members to complete the exercise of teacher-student rationalisation by the next meeting, “I expect at least all temporary closed school, due to non-availability of the teachers, must be opened with better teacher rationalisation exercise”, he added.
The secretary was also concerned about the problems faced by the retired employees related to their pension and directed the concerned officials to speed up the process.