SHC concerned over poor state of affairs in education department.

HYDERABAD -- The Hyderabad circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Thursday expressed grave concern over poor state of affairs in education department and asked why the department failed to evolve a mechanism for recruitment of teachers in line with policy.

The bench comprising Justices Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui and Mohammad Faisal Kamal Alam put several questions to Sindh Minister for Education Saeed Ghani and Chief Secretary Mumtaz Ali Shah and the minister informed that there was shortage of 37,000 teachers in the province.

The minister and the CS had appeared in court in response to a court order passed on various petitions about shortage of teachers and denial of jobs to qualified candidates etc.

'The situation is quite alarming. We used to hear about students studying on mats in schools or without school buildings but now we hear there are no teachers at all in schools. And it has become a common phenomenon now,' said Justice Siddiqui while addressing the minister.

The judge said that there were also schools where only one teacher had to teach all subjects. 'We have cases where buffaloes and cows are kept in school buildings. It is indeed high time,' he remarked.

Justice Siddiqui asked Sindh Advocate General Salman Talibuddin 'with utmost respect can we ask whether these respected personalities [minister and CS] will send their children to such schools,' to which AG promptly replied 'you are right they won't'.

AG said the CS had submitted a proposal to chief minister according to which 25pc of district development programme funds would be spent on maintenance of school infrastructure in every district.

He disclosed that funds under corporate social responsibilities by oil companies would also be spent on schools' upkeep. The apex court's implementation bench would be going through reports of every district administration regarding maintenance of schools, he said.

Justice Siddiqui asked the minister why his department did not appoint deserving teachers. Justice Alam interjected to ask why education department did not devise mechanism that alerted about retirement date of teachers in schools so that vacancies were filled in time. The education policy was quite realistic if it was honestly implemented. 'There is serious dearth of teachers in schools,' said Justice Siddiqui.

The bench gave a patient hearing to the minister, who said that data had been collected by the department now that showed that out of 49,000 schools 36,000 were...