PESHAWAR, Nov 30: Understaffing is a common problem at government schools but the situation is even worse in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 2,625 primary educational institutions have one teacher only.

Of these schools, 1175 are for boys and 1450 for girls, according to the latest Elementary and Secondary Education Department statistics seen by Dawn.

The statistics show 155,544 students are enrolled in ‘one-teacher’ schools and 67,665 of them are boys and 87,879 girls.

Most of these schools are in rural areas, including those of including Peshawar, say the relevant officials, who blame the understaffing problem on unavailability of teachers and the politically-motivated transfers of teachers to the sought-after desired urban localities.

A district education officer (male) said a single teacher at a ‘one-teacher’ school was supposed to take six classes from Kachi to Grade V.

He said by and large, teachers got themselves transferred from rural areas to urban areas to claim additional allowance and avail themselves of civic amenities.

“It’s obvious that schools in far-off areas will either remain shut for unavailability of teachers or have a single teacher when teachers will get themselves posted to choice schools in cities using political connections,” he said.

The DEO admitted that the ‘one-teacher’ schools had poor academic activities as it was humanly impossible for a single teacher to attend to the needs of students of six classes.

“At such school, students spend most of the time playing,” he said.

He said spending money of such schools was a waste of the government resources by and large.

An educationist, who wished not to be named, said ‘single-teacher’ schools remained virtually closed when their only teacher was absent from duty either for personal work or ailment.

He said those schools continued to be closed for weeks under such circumstances as the education department didn’t provided alterative teachers.

The educationist said ‘single-teacher’ schools had no administrative heads and therefore, their teachers often came to duty late and left early.

He said the minimum sanctioned teaching posts for a new primary school was two and the number gradually went up with better enrolments.

When contacted, Rafiq Khattak, director at elementary and secondary education, said formulation of the ‘school-based recruitment policy’ for primary schools was in its final stages.

He said under the said policy, teachers would be appointed in primary schools on permanent basis.

“Teachers will continue to work in their respective schools until retirement,” he said.

Mr Khattak said under the new policy, teachers would be appointed to primary schools on need basis.