Notices have been issued to 'missing teachers' to report to the education department immediately. — File

QUETTA Balochistan's Education Minister Shafiq Ahmed Khan has disclosed that there are 3,500 ghost schools in the province.

According to a survey conducted by the education department, the minister told Dawn, these schools existed only on papers.

He said notices had been issued to 'missing teachers' and they had been directed to report to the department immediately. But most of them have not responded so far.

The minister's statement came a day after Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani set up a task force to curb cheating in examinations and to improve the standard of education in the province.

Mr Shafiq Khan said there were 45,000 teachers in about 13,000 primary, middle and high schools in the province. 'For the last 14 months, the finance department has not given a single penny to the education department. Half of the schools are without roofs and boundary walls, even the girls' schools.'

Sources in the finance department said that in the financial year 2008-09 the government spent Rs6.5 billion on salaries and allowances of teachers and Rs550 million was given for development of education sector.

Government schools in many areas of Quetta have no basic amenities.

'We have no toilet, no drinking water and no electricity,' said Naimatullah, a student of a government primary school in Quetta.

According to the survey, a number of schools are in rented buildings and the government has no funds to help them have their own buildings.

The minister said that without the support of political parties and the tribal elite it would be difficult to solve the problem of ghost schools.