Teachers teaching subjects they’re not qualified for

Islamabad: The Islamabad Model College for Boys, G-10/4, has long been facing an acute shortage of science teachers forcing the administration to reduce the number of daily classes from seven to five.

Ironically, many teachers are taking classes of the subjects, which they are not qualified for. According to insiders, the last permanent appointments of teachers were made through the Federal Public Service Commission in 2010.

They told ‘The News’ that the government hadn’t appointed teachers in eight years. The insiders said the administration benefited from the situation and posted relatives as temporary social sciences teachers without following the laid-down procedure but ignored the science teachers’ appointment.

They said the educational institution was acutely short of science teachers, including mathematics, chemistry, physics, and biology. They said the understaffing had not only led to the reduction of the number of science classes from seven to five days but also it had made Urdu, Chemistry and computer science teachers take mathematics classes.

“Earlier, seven classes were conducted for a grade daily but the number has reduced to five due to the serious shortage of teachers,” a teacher said. He claimed that under the circumstances, the principals had accommodated relatives as social science teachers on a contractual or daily wage basis but didn’t hire teachers for science subjects to the misery of students, whose strength had gone up considerably over the years.

Another teacher said the ultimate victims of the dismal situation were students and the youths, who had the talents and qualifications to be excellent teachers. When contacted, Muhammad Ziauddin of the Central Academic Staff Association, Islamabad, confirmed the acute understaffing in the college and said each class had 65-70 students. “Things in our educational institutions are fast worsening due to the neglect of the relevant authorities,” he said regretting unavailability of teachers for a majority of subjects in sufficient numbers. Ziauddin demanded the immediate steps for the teachers’ hiring, regularisation, and time-scale promotion, especially those teaching science subjects.