BackOn 11 January 2024, the Ombudsman Sindh had a meeting with the Secretary of Education to discuss the progress of the implementation on the study “Issues of girls’ education in Sindh”. While discussing the progress, the Secretary, Sindh Education & Literacy Department (SE&LD) stated that the Province of Sindh is currently facing a critical challenge in its education sector, characterized by many non-functional one-room schools and has developed a graveyard of schools.
She added that there are 25,000 one-room schools out of 36,000 primary schools and that these non-performing schools need to be eliminated gradually and replaced by more effective educational facilities. These will address the issues of a significant number of schoolchildren, dropout rates and Gender gap. Further, she stated “we need to increase the number of female teachers, provide stipend and scholarships to encourage girls enrolment and retention as well as to provide transportation in priority districts to elevate the attendance rate of female students and teachers. There is a need to have partnerships with the private sector/civil society for sustainable quality education.”
The Secretary informed that the community based low cost school construction model based on Sindh’s recent low cost housing model in flood affected areas will be adopted by constructing 50 Nos - 6 rooms (one room 20’x 16’) functional and sustainable Primary schools in Sindh. The cost of which will be much less than the conventional RCC structure, which is very costly, takes long time to build, and deteriorates in six month due to the poor quality of construction.
She added that there is a need to eliminate the post of Taluka Education Officer (TEOs) dealing with budget 500 schools which is not humanly / physically possible and should be replaced with Head Teacher with proper rationalized SNE for each school for their smooth running and the TEO can be posted back as a teacher.
Ombudsman Sindh endorsed the proposal/recommendation and said that it is in line with the recommendations of the study, which include providing the physical infrastructure, female teachers in girls’ school, proper SNE for schools, maintaining the student teacher ratio, posting of Naib Qasid and chowkidar etc.
The Secretary also talked about teacher licensing initiatives to be adopted by every school and operationalization of Directorate of Literacy and Non-Formal Education (L&NFE) to give a second chance to those girls who missed it in the first place by holding classes in the evening for the children (9 to 16 years) in schools not having second shift.
The Ombudsman expressed his concern on partial availability of textbooks to the students in the current session and directed the Secretary that SE&LD would assure the availability of textbooks to all the students before the start of new session.
The Secretary was directed to carry out the survey for authentic disaggregated data of schoolchildren for better planning, the training for the newly appointed teachers, formulation of SMCs headed by mother, proper monitoring of teachers attendance by the M&E Wing, and action be taken against absconder teachers.
The Ombudsman Sindh also directed the Secretary to ensure that new teachers replacing the retired teachers be notified six month earlier in order to avoid to have to close the school and the issues such as appointment of teachers, increasing the enrolment etc. with Education Management Organizations (EMOs) be looked into by the department.
Source: The Office of the Provincial Ombudsman Sindh, Pakistan
