Daily Times

LAHORE: The Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) has said that the School Education Department (SED) is making Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif fool’ by manipulating the figures of public schools being handed over to private sector and Danish School Authority (DSA).

PTU President Sajjad Akbar Kazmi said that several educationists as well as responsible of the SED were trying to implement the “practically inapplicable policies”. He alleged that the education department was manipulating facts and figures for last eight years. “A recent example of this is that the public schools giving more than 90 percent results with strength of 1,500 to 3,000 students are being given under supervision of the DSA.

In this connection, Kazmi also cited a report prepared by the auditor general, which declared the SEC a “hub of corruption and favouritism”, thus “putting a question mark on the eight-year performance of the department”.

He said that the DSA officials were trying to take over schools that were performing better as it had failed to give good results when compared to the government schools.

He observed that there were thousands of government schools in rural Punjab waiting for building, infrastructure and staff but no one was giving attention towards them, rather, every one wanted to control the schools giving satisfactory results. “The SED should hand over such schools to DSA which were not giving good results, he said.

Pertinent to mention that the PTU earlier staged a sit-in at Faisal chowk in front of Punjab Assembly in May against the handing over of public schools to non-government organisations (NGOs) and Danish Schools Authority.

The PTU demanded the Punjab chief minister and the chief secretary to stop the handing over of 13 government schools to the DSA. The teachers also threatened to take the streets again if their demands were not entertained.