The interim government has explained its decision to cancel the proposal for recruiting music and physical education teachers in government primary schools, saying the plan was flawed and would have created inequality.
In a statement issued by the Press Wing on Tuesday, the government said it had taken note of various media reports regarding the withdrawal of the recruitment proposal.
Initially, the government had decided to appoint an equal number of physical education and music teachers across 2,500 clusters of primary schools nationwide. However, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education later withdrew from that decision based on the recommendation of the Secretary Committee.
According to the committee, there were faults in the project’s planning. Recruiting such a limited number of teachers would not bring effective benefits to primary education and would instead lead to disparities.
There are 65,569 primary schools across the country, and implementing the proposed recruitment in most of them would not be feasible, the committee observed. Under the cluster-based recruitment system, a single teacher would have to serve in more than 20 schools at a time, making it impossible to manage their working hours effectively.
The committee further suggested that, subject to the availability of funds in the future, the government could consider creating such teaching positions for new subjects in all primary schools and appointing teachers accordingly.
