RAWALPINDI, Aug 27: Poor performance by the education department has brought Rawalpindi from third best performing district to the 24th in the Punjab.

Under the education sector reforms programme of the Punjab government, the performance of schools of every district from primary to the higher secondary level is documented by a monitoring and implementation unit after every quarter of the year.

If a district fails to meet the targets set for it, its administration is grilled by a committee of the provincial government and asked to improve its working.

Since 2012, Rawalpindi had remained the third best performing district in the province.

To get a good ranking, each district has to meet the targets set in 18 indicators.

The indicators include variables like teacher and student attendance, examination results, provision of facilities in the institutions and distribution of free textbooks to the students.

The Punjab government on Tuesday intimated to the city district government Rawalpindi its poor performance in the education sector.

According to a report, Nankana stood on top of the 36 districts in the province followed by Chiniot, Okara, Bahawalnagar and Faisalabad. Lahore, Rawalpindi, Multan, Gujranwala and other big cities failed to get into the top five districts.

In the Rawalpindi division, Jhelum ranked 10th, Attock 14th, Chakwal 20 and Rawalpindi 24th in the province.

A representative of teachers attributed the poor ranking to teachers’ deployment in the elections, polio and measles vaccination duties. “We have spent two weeks in every month on different duties,” said Chaudhry Sagheer Alam, the vice-president of the Punjab Teachers Association.

He said the schools opened on August 12 but the teachers attended classes hardly for four days till August 27. “If the government wants good performance, it should allow teachers to attend all the classes every month,” he said.

When contacted, District Coordination Officer (DCO) Sajid Zafar said it was very unfortunate that the district had ranked 24th in the province. “I have directed the department to submit me daily report and I will personally monitor the working of the department.”

He said the district administration would control absenteeism among teachers besides improving the exam results and providing missing facilities in all the educational institutions to improve the ranking of the district.

The DCO also said he had directed the executive district officer (EDO) to send him a report about the attendance of teachers, students and non-teaching staff on a daily basis. The enrollment targets have already been given to the department which should be achieved within three months.

The EDO, Qazi Zahoorul Haq, said the basic reason for the low ranking was non-utilisation of funds. The department managed to spend only 20 per cent of the funds allocated for the provision of missing facilities.

When asked about teachers performing elections and vaccination duties, the official said it was not the reason behind the low ranking as these campaigns were launched in other districts too.

He said transfers and postings of staff also created problems to achieve the targets. “The new official will have to spend two months to understand the system in the district and could not work properly,” he said.