Most govt schools, colleges in Islamabad have overcrowded classrooms

Islamabad: Most government schools and colleges in Islamabad have overcrowded classrooms, where the teachers struggle to deliver effective lessons to 50-60 children packed in like sardines.

However, some public sector educational institutions are an exception as the teachers outnumber students there.

Among them is the Islamabad Model College for Boys, H-9, which has seven teachers for only three B.Com Part-I students though the recommended capacity of a class is 40.

Things are little better in B.Com Part-II class, where seven students have seven teachers to take lessons from.

Ironically, the B.Com students have been scoring poor exam results for many years despite having more teachers than required. And even in some exams, none of the students got the passing marks.

Some teachers declare these small class sizes a waste of resources, especially in light of the presence of a proper public sector commerce college just a kilometre away.

“The three B.Com students of the H-9 college can be easily adjusted in the Islamabad Model College of Commerce, H-8/4, where the strength of B.Com class is around 150,” a college teacher told ‘The News’.

While revealing the running of many BA and BSc classes, too, far below the recommended capacity, he said around10 students were enrolled in the subjects of botany, zoology and geography and economics.

Another teacher claimed that things were no different at the nearby H-8 Postgraduate College, which, too, had unreasonably small class sizes in many courses.

He regretted that on one hand, the capital city’s most government educational institutions were short of teachers but on the other, they spent excessively to operate classes with fewer students than capacity.

“The number of teachers should match the class strength. The colleges should operate with the lower number of teachers in subjects, where the enrollment is low,” he said adding that the outnumbering of students by teachers is adversely impacting on the overall productivity of educational institutions.

The teacher criticised the top bosses of the Federal Directorate of Education for being involved in ‘internal politics’ rather than streamline or restructure educational institutions to improve their efficiency. “Only the restructuring and revamping of the entire administrative setup of the FDE can reduce the excessive operating costs and increase the value of educational institutions,” he said.