LARKANA: En masse transfer of 14 science lecturers from Government Degree College, Larkana, has serious implications for ensuring regular classes as the few remaining teachers cannot cope with the huge load, complain lecturers association.

The college principal had complained to secretary of education in a letter on Oct 28, 2020 that the notification dated Oct 26, 2020, which transferred the teachers had badly impacted education in the biggest college in Larkana region with around 8,000 enrolments in different disciplines.

He said that currently 5,980 students were getting education in pre-medical, pre-engineering, computer and arts and over 2,000 were enrolled in BSc. The college already faced shortage of 19 lecturers whose posts were lying vacant according to schedule of new expenditure (SNE) and with the transfer of 14 more the number of vacant seats would rise to 33, which would further aggravate the situation, he said.

Surprisingly, the SNE had not a single post of professor in grade 20 which was quite unfortunate, said Prof Syed Ghulam Asghar Shah, Sukkur region president of Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association (SPLA).

The transfer of science teachers would seriously affect education. Only two teachers were left in the department of chemistry who would not be able to bear the huge load of conducting 28 classes a day, said the principal, adding that the situation was almost similar in physics department and other subjects.

The principal had urged immediate cancellation of the transfers and warned that implementation of the notification would seriously harm education but the request had perhaps been put on the backburner, said an affected lecturer.

There were only two lecturers left in the college to teach chemistry to a large number of students enrolled in pre-medical, pre-engineering and BSc classes and the two could simply not be able to bear the huge load, said sources in the college.

Secretary education (colleges) Khalid Haider Shah was apprised of the difficulty the college was facing after the lecturers’ transfers during his visit on Feb 25, said the sources.

The SPLA leader said that it was quite surprising that the biggest college in the region had no post of professor in grade-20 while in past there were three posts of professors. The six seats of associate professors in grade-19 allocated for the college too were silently transferred to other colleges, which badly affected academic activities, he said.

All colleges in Larkana and Qambar-Shahdadkot districts had two seats each of professors while the Government Degree College Larkana had none though it should have ample number of seats of professors and associate professors, he said.

The SPLA feared six more recently promoted lecturers might be transferred as currently there was no vacancy in the college to accommodate them but if they too were transferred the number of vacant seats would swell to 27, he said.

The principal urged the secretary to withdraw the notification in the larger interest of education and revise the SNE after assessing number of students and the number of teachers required for them.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2021