There is shortage of around 3,000 teachers in the Federal Directorate of Education
The shortage of teachers at Islamabad Model Colleges has been an unsolved problem since time, which directly suffering the learning outcomes particularly in the senior sections of the federal colleges.
Despite being the educated city of the country, school/college management important subjects to the non-teaching staff, who are totally irrelevant and incompetent to teach the higher classes.
In order to fill the vacant positions, administrations of the colleges have reportedly engaged the non-teaching staff or to ‘borrow teachers’ from sister educational institutions on ad-hoc arrangements.
It’s reported that one of the largest boys’ college in Sector H-8, a lower division clerk (LDC) is teaching political science to the Bachelors-level students. Moreover, an Islamic Studies lecturer is teaching students history in the same college.
Further, at the Islamabad Model Postgraduate College for Girls in Sector F-7/4, a teacher for Persian was found teaching Urdu.
This tale repeats like a pattern at different colleges of the capital such as the Islamabad Model College for Boys in Sector F-11/3, the Sihala Degree College in Sector I-8/3, Girls College in Sector I-14/3 which have been working without the requisite teaching faculty.
Political alienation and lack of pluralistic and progressive views among the youth is obvious when such important subjects are not given importance by either not teaching altogether or teaching by the unqualified faculty.
The situation has been exacerbated when over 2,000 daily-wage teachers went on strike on January 9 over non-payment of their salaries for eight months. The government had vowed to fill the vacant posts and resolve the issues of daily wages teaching staff; however, both issues not have still been addressed by the ministry.
Around 422 educational institutes including model and FG set-up are being run by Federal Directorate of Education under Ministry of Capital Administration & Development Division (CADD) which includes 250,000 students and facing the severe shortage of teaching staff, particularly of science subjects.
However, Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) Director General Hasnat Qureshi said that they had advertised for over 300 positions of elementary school teachers in basic pay scale (BPS)-14 along with the non-teaching staff.
Positions in BPS- 16 and above are rerouted to the Federal Public Service Commission for recruitment.
“It is crucial that teachers have expertise in their subjects,” explained Professor Tahir Mahmood, a former representative of the teachers association. He added that they should have a good understanding of the subjects they are teaching.
“Students taught by teachers who lack sufficient knowledge risk losing an interest [in studies]. If you have a Biology-teacher teaching physics, it is obvious that the understanding of students for Physics will not be there. It is a matter of common sense that teachers cannot teach what they do not know,” he argued.