Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Around 43 per cent of the government schools across the country did not receive any professional training during last five years aimed decreased enrollment ratio at many government education institutes of the country.

According to a survey conducted by a non-profit, non-governmental organization Alif Ailaan, 58 per cent teachers at the government schools were not equipped with any professional skills required for the development of a sound national level curriculum. The survey stated that 73 per cent of the school teachers have not conducted any course or courses of assessment techniques before joining service training.

Experts argued that any attempt to improve teaching quality in the country, education system demands proper pre-service and in-service trainings. However, no such arrangements were made to tackle the deteriorating conditions of teaching skills at the government schools.

Alif Ailaan issued the report on the eve of World Teachers Day, celebrated worldwide on October 5 (Today). The report stated that there are nearly 1.4 million teachers in Pakistan at both public and private sectors.

As per the report outlined that 51 per cent of the government school teachers secured Bachelors of Education (B.Ed) degree or higher and a vast majority of government school teachers, at least 62 per cent have more than 16 years of teaching experience. On the contrary, 67 per cent school teachers in the private sector have less than 5 years of teaching experience.

Despite better-qualified and more experienced teachers, with the exception of low fee private schools, the learning levels of children in private schools are better than that of the children enrolled in most of the government schools.

Report stated that 67 per cent of Class 5 students in private schools can read a story in Urdu compared to 52 per cent of those in the government schools. Similarly, 61 per cent of Class 5 students in private schools can do two-digit division compared to 47 per cent government school students in the same grade. Furthermore, private school students of Class 5 that can read a sentence in English language stood at 65 compared to 45 per cent of students in the same class in government schools.

The factors affecting teachers’ performance in the report said that multi-grade teaching, high teacher-student ratio, excessive workload, non-teaching duties, lack of training opportunities and lack of basic facilities in schools are some of the factors that affect teachers’ performance and ultimately, the learning outcomes of children in the government schools.

There were not enough teachers available in government schools and most of the vacancies across the country were lying vacant since long due to negligence on part of the government, the report claimed.

“Twenty nine per cent of government primary schools in Pakistan, having nursery to fifth grade have only one teacher, who also performs non-teaching duties as well such as vaccination to children, duty in elections and also take part in censes,” said a paragraph in the report.