KARACHI: The Sindh government has failed to utilise Rs6.954 billion grants to eliminate ghost teachers and non-functional schools within the required time frame due to the unsatisfactory implementation of the given format, and has asked the donors for enhancing the close date, documents available with Pakistan Today reveal.
The Sindh government got the grant on April 2, 2015, for implementing a regular mechanism for districts to get correct information from the field, as well as taking actions against absenteeism of teachers and students, to make the schools functional. This was the first step which proved to be very useful in tackling some of the chronic problems of ghost teachers and non-functional schools.
The grant meant to set a milestone of governance and execution of accountability mechanisms of the programme by identifying teacher absenteeism, absconding teachers and closed schools.
The document mention that the grand objective was to strengthen the institutional capacity to generate, disseminate and use information to support the implementation of key reforms by supporting key aspects of governance and accountability mechanisms, to ensure the effective implementation of the larger share of essential education sector reforms and activities to improve education outcomes
According to details, Sindh government was to establish a basic Human Resource and Information System (HRMIS) for developing a comprehensive Sindh School Monitoring System (SSMS), besides improving communication mechanisms for education structural improvement. The SSMS was to be implemented across Sindh in 29 districts through the Directorate General of Monitoring and Evaluation. (DG M&E).
The department was required to share monthly information of the monitoring results with the divisional and district heads to ensure that the data was used in taking necessary actions at the field level. Basic HRMIS has been developed and handed over to the education department data centre.
The system got all reports and functionalities available to start a detailed round of testing and quality assurance of the system. An exercise to standardise definitions of indicators across SED is being initiated that will help collection and reporting of data in a consistent manner across sources. The department has also developed a comprehensive communication strategy and is implementing it effectively to enhance awareness of reforms as well as to improve coordination mechanisms within the department.
The Internal Communications System (ICS) pilot has been deployed and preparation for scale-up is underway.
Sindh government has requested an extension of the closing date to ensure that all contractual activities under the technical assistance can be completed. It is extremely important that the contractual activities are completed to fully meet the objectives of the project. The restructuring paper proposes an extension of the closing date by three months to December 29, 2017.
Documents note that government school system is extensive, comprising of over 43,000 functional schools, with a reported enrollment of 3.65 million students in grades 1–12 and 148,000 teachers. More than 90 per cent of functional government schools are primary schools (grades 1–5), and 72 per cent of these primary schools have only one or two teachers.
Less than 20 per cent of schools have reported very low enrollment (less than 25 students), and 52 per cent have poor-quality or no facilities and amenities. Most schools have little or no education inputs apart from assigned teachers and textbooks.
