Ghazni students complain of trained teachers’ shortage

GHAZNI CITY (Pajhwok): School students in southern Ghazni province complain they are faced with a shortage of professional teachers, an issue that has not received due attention from the relevant quarters.

A provincial council member, Hamidullah Sarwari, told Pajhwok Afghan News that just like remote districts, the provincial capital was also in the grip of lack of trained schoolteachers.

In most schools of the province, the public representative alleged, students were taught by temporarily-appointed teachers. He called the absence of professionally trained teachers a hurdle to a sound education.

“Although hundreds of people receive degrees from universities every year, our schools remain short of professional teachers,” Sarwari remarked, asking the education department to hire young graduates from universities.

Mohammad Amin Ibrahimzoy, a resident of Qarabagh district, said students in his town were not taught by professional teachers. As a result, they could not learn and scored poorly in university entry tests.

Shah Mohammad, a student of Shamsul Aarifin High School in Ghazni City, said most of teachers were untrained. He urged the authorities concerned to resolve the problem on priority.

Meanwhile, Education Director Mohammad Abid Abid said that the shortage of professional teachers was being addressed. He added of the 8,000 teachers posted to Ghazni schools, only 1,000 were not professional.

“We plan an exam for 270 more applicants in near future and that will help overcome the problem of professional teachers’ shortage,” he said.

In response to a question, he said professional teachers were not interested in going to remote areas of the province and that was why teachers had to be hired based on a contractual basis.

There are around 600 schools in Ghazni, where 500,000 students including girls are enrolled. However, more than half of schools lack buildings, a big headache for teachers and students.

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