LAHORE - Teachers have taken a swipe at the Punjab government for making a mass transfer of principals to cover up its flawed education policies.

The government has transferred dozens of its school principals as nearly 70,000 students have got enrolled with private institutes, exposing educational reforms by the government.

Now the educationists question as to how they can convince children to stay in their schools when the students do not like to stay in public schools.

According to them, the top officials made such a shuffle to hoodwink people of their flawed policies.

Since long, government teachers have been raising their concerns at their deployment on administrative duties during elections and other government campaigns like polio and dengue drives.

Former GCU principal Prof Khurshid Ahmad shared the sorry state, saying: “The faulty education policy and other priorities of government have damaged the education system as whole.”

He observed politicians, bureaucrats, and even teachers did not like their children enrolled with government schools.

Moreover, he said lower cadre officials including watchmen and peons also prefer private schools to government institute.

“Where the children of education minister, secretary and other high-ups are studying,” he questioned, insisting that these education-related bigwigs have distrust on their own revolutionary reforms as they sent their children to private schools.

He further questioned: “What has the Daanish Schools and Punjab Education Foundation-partners produced so far? Have students from these schools shown up with good results?”

“Snapping shots with outstanding students on annual prize distribution ceremony and pinky promises during speeches has never delivered,” he held.

PEF claims a number of students in its partner schools in 36 districts of the province have reached to 2.5 million what educationists claimed that this figure includes a good number of children dropped out from government schools.

A PEF officer claimed that a total of 113.6 per cent increase in enrollment has been witnessed in its partner schools.

Under the School Education Department’s Universal Primary Education campaign, the primary teachers are bound to join a door-to-door activity to convince parents to send their children to schools.

“How these teachers can campaign for the cause when their own children are preferably sent to private school,” asked Prof Syed Ali Hadi, a private college teacher.

In 2015, the education department directed the district officers and school heads to ‘adopt’ two primary schools each to bring betterment to their campus regarding facilities and education standards.

They were also asked to submit monthly reports to the education secretary but performance is very poor in this regard.

A meeting under the Punjab chief secretary last week reportedly was told that 30, out of 36, DCOs failed to provide much-demanded facilities to their schools.

It is also reported that politicians either have stakes in private schools or have been backed by the persons doing the business in the name of quality education.

Since long, the government has been ignoring teachers.

Prof Hadi said teachers have not been promoted so far though the government promoted clerks and cops.

Despite repeated attempts, School Education Secretary Abdul Jabbar Shaheen could not be reached for comments.