Why are college teachers walking away?

LAHORE : During the last six years on average 12 college teachers were removed from service every month as they quit their jobs without informing the department, reveals an analysis of official data of the Higher Education Department (HED) Punjab.

These teachers did not follow the procedure to resign from their jobs; therefore, the HED Punjab had to remove them from service for prolonged absence from duty under the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability (PEEDA) Act.

A total of 888 teachers were removed from service between January 2016 to December 2022 of which 453 were male teachers while the remaining 435 were female teachers. These teachers included lecturers and assistant professors and the analysis shows most of those removed were lecturers which means those who quit were relatively new appointees.

This scribe obtained the data using the Right to Information (RTI) law and the requested information was provided only after the Punjab Information Commission (PIC) intervened as the department earlier did not respond to the RTI request within the stipulated time period under the Punjab Transparency and Right to Information Act 2013.

While the department never bothered to investigate as to why these young individuals walked away, there is a general perception that most of them either went abroad on foreign scholarships and did not return and in cases many quit for more rewarding opportunities within the country after passing CSS or PMS exams. In the case of female teachers, the consensus is that the majority left the profession after marriage as women in Pakistan are often forced out of their careers once they are married and in many cases others had to quit as they were posted far away from their hometowns and could not continue because of hardship they faced.

“The appointment of teachers in colleges is not just competitive but a lengthy and time-consuming process and those who ultimately suffer when a teacher leaves the job are the students,” commented Dr Hafiz Muhammad Iqbal, former Dean of Education, University of the Punjab.

Dr Iqbal says that the department should know why teachers are leaving the jobs and do something to control the situation. There should be some sort of policy that the teachers at least inform the department while quitting so that the department can make informed decisions, he suggests.

The analysis further reveals that of all 888 teachers, 270 teachers were of science subjects, including those of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Botany etc while rest of the 618 teachers were of arts subjects with majority teaching English, Urdu and Punjabi language subjects.

It is pertinent to mention here that teachers in public colleges are appointed after a highly competitive process involving Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) exam and interview. Only a couple of years back, against 2,400 teaching posts some 375,000 candidates had applied online on the PPSC portal.

Sources in the HED Punjab said that presently the department had a shortage of around 7,000 teachers and had recently advertised hiring of 3,650 College Teaching Interns (CTIs) in order to overcome shortage of the teaching staff.

Commenting upon teachers’ decision of abruptly quitting the jobs, Punjab Professors & Lecturers Association (PPLA) former president Abdul Khaliq Nadeem says that since teachers in their first posting are usually posted in small towns or in the outskirts of big cities many females leave jobs within a short period of time as they are posted far away from home and cannot continue because of hardship they face in commuting or living away from family.

According to Abdul Khaliq Nadeem some teachers also quit as they join civil service after CSS or PMS exams where they enjoy power besides handsome salaries and different perks and privileges.

A college teacher, while requesting anonymity, said that the department had no mechanism to maintain records of those who even resign. To explain, he said a couple of years back one of his colleagues resigned as he was selected at a university. However, somehow he could not join the university and meanwhile over a year had passed. “To his surprise when he went back to HED he was informed there was no record of his resignation so he was fine to continue at his college.

Raja Yassir Humayun Sarfraz, Punjab Minister for Higher Education, agrees that there should be a proper mechanism to document those who quit the job.

Talking about female teachers’ possibility of quitting because of the posting related issues, Raja Yassir said he was all for teachers being employees of colleges like the case with universities so that at least the teachers don't have to leave because of transfer and posting related issues.