HARIPUR: The administration of Government Girls College, Khalabat Township, has stopped offering admissions in three BS subjects for the fall semester 2024 due to shortage of teachers, official sources told Dawn here on Saturday.

The decision was taken on the directives of the directorate of higher education, said the sources while sharing a letter from the office concerned.

A letter issued to the regional directorate of higher education, Abbottabad, from the office of deputy director academics, directorate of higher education, KP, on August 28, 2024, while referring to the minutes of the 8th meeting of the BS committee asked for compliance and necessary action.

The same letter carried the copy of a letter issued from the office of Said Wali, BS coordinator, directorate of higher education KP, under the subject “follow up meeting of the committee to streamline and enhance the quality of education” held on June 20, 2024.

Through this letter the BS coordinator also quoted the reference of the meeting of the committee held on June 5, 2024 at the office of special secretary higher education department wherein it was decided that the colleges having BS programmes with 0-1 faculty would not offer admissions for fall semester 2024.

Official sources at the Government Girls College, Khalabat Township, confirmed that the administration had, in compliance with a letter from the directorate of higher education department, decided not to offer new admissions in Urdu, political science and English. Each department had sanctioned 40 seats, the official sources told Dawn.

The college’s principal was not available for comments. However, the clerical staff confirmed the college had only one teacher for each of the three departments for the last few months, and the frequent transfer of the faculty forced the administration to temporarily freeze the admissions for the first semester of the three programmes until the filling of vacant posts.

Official sources said the college’s principal had written to the higher education directorate for either filling the vacant seats with permanent staff or allowing her to make arrangements locally on contract basis. They expressed the hope that the matter would be resolved shortly.

Commenting on the situation, general secretary of KP Professors and Lecturers’ Association Prof Qazi Zafar Iqbal said besides the Khalabat college, all the 14 boys and girls’ colleges of Haripur were facing shortage of teachers. He said the department was not advertising the new posts, which had been vacant for years across KP.

Mr Iqbal said the provincial government should allow the college’s administration to make arrangements on its own to cope up with the situation until the permanent faculty was hired.

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2024