Upcoming budget should accommodate missing school facilities

Rawalpindi

A survey conducted by Youth Accountability Ambassadors of Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO) of schools situated under NA-54, NA-55 and NA-56 reveals that the public schools lack basic facilities including furniture, clean drinking water and shortage of teaching and non-teaching staff affecting quality of education in public schools for students.

Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO) Executive Director Syed Kausar Abbas, while talking to ‘The News’ here on Wednesday said that the Youth Accountability ambassadors of SSDO conducted the survey of public schools of NA-54, NA-55 and NA-56 in Rawalpindi and found that the schools lacks the basic facilities like furniture, clean drinking water, proper building and shortage of teaching and non-teaching staff for the students. He said that according to survey the youth ambassadors visited 22 Boys schools in total, to see the infrastructure and as well as other basic facilities in public schools. The boys’ schools of Rawalpindi, 79 posts of teachers were vacant in schools. The total sanctioned posts are 685 from which only 606 were filled and remaining 79 were vacant. The youth ambassadors also visited 18 girls’ schools in total to check the quality of education and the posts vacant for staff. According to the survey it was found that the total sanctioned posts were 529 out of which only 489 were filled and 40 posts of teachers were vacant that affects the quality of education in the public schools.

The non-teaching staff includes security guard, peon, sanitary worker, sweeper etc were also checked and found that the total sanctioned posts were 147 out of which only 122 were filled 25 posts were vacant in the boys schools. The girls’ schools also lacks the non-teaching staff for the students and total sanctioned posts were 129 out of which only 100 were filled and 29 posts were vacant. Other than that, the building structure, hygiene conditions, classrooms, libraries and lab facilities were also surveyed to which the results for not as satisfactory. For this purpose several meetings were conducted where the delegation of youth ambassadors met the DCO Rawalpindi and urged him to take an account of the issues pointed out. Some of these posts were never filled and it was also said that not every low budget school is allocated a security guard or peon by the government. 

Kausar Abbas said that the provincial and district government needs to focus on the vacant posts and should fill in the upcoming budget. The budget of education should be consulted with elected local government and as well as local communities to ensure the need based allocation of funds in the schools.