About 44,000 positions of government school teachers over Punjab have been abolished.

According to sources in Punjab School Education Department, outsourcing of schools is the reason for abolishing positions as it is now up to the private owners to hire teacher according to their policy.

On the other hand, teachers say that such a decision would result in increasing unemployment among young people in the province.

The sources said the department had decided to abolish more than 44,000 positions of teachers and staff in government schools in the province. The decision comes at a time when thousands of candidate youth were waiting for recruitment in government schools.

Recruitment was last performed in 2018. The teachers’ unions have repeatedly required recruitment to fill out the vacancies over the past seven years, but governments ignored their demand.

Government schools faced serious problems due to the lack of about 100,000 teachers.

The lack of filling the vacancies not only affected the education of a large number of students, but also caused disposal among the unemployed young people. “Punjab School Education Department has decided to abolish about 44,000 positions and transfer teachers from the outsourced schools to other institutions,” a senior official said. About 15 percent positions in the school education sector have been abolished, including according to available data, 43,960 positions in the outsourced schools.

About 10,000 schools in the province have so far been outsourced and the decision has been communicated to the school education department and the educational authorities in all districts, the official said.

The authorities were informed that recruitment would not be performed for the outsourced schools and that teachers’ positions should be considered abolished.

An Mphil student, Ammara Rasheed, said, while talking to Express Pakinomist, called the decision to abolish positions as teachers shocking. “We had fixed hope that teachers are recruited for a long time to be hired,” she said.

She said a large number of qualified young people had crossed the age limit for recruitment over the past seven years.

However, spokesman for the Provincial Education Ministry Noorul Huda said those who had taken control of the outsourced schools would recruit their teachers and the posts had not been abolished.