QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch has stressed the need to get rid of all social ills afflicting education, particularly absentee teachers and cheating in exams.

According to him, all stakeholders will have to play their role to cleanse the education system of the ills.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the education department in connection with its anti-cheating drive here on Thursday, Dr Baloch said: `When the evil reach their peak in any society the process of reform begins. We will have to do justice to ourselves by accepting the reality and come up with joint efforts to transform the society.

The chief minister said the nationshould be serious about the social evils which were pushing it back in every field of life. `Our coalition government is taking concrete and serious measures to improve the education system and to get rid of cheating, he said.

The provincial government had not only increased the education budget but had also decentralised powers so that the education department could function smoothly, he said.

`More than 4,000 posts of teachers will be filled through the National Testing Service (NTS) so that the deserving candidates may get their rights,` he said, adding that if any mismanagement was found in the NTS the government would take action against it.

Dr Baloch said that because the provincial education budget had been enhanced the province would soon have a number of good institutions.On an average, he said, there was one teacher for every 16 students in Balochistan. However, there were many schools in the province which didn`t have any teacher.

`We are committed to controlling dropout rate of children by starting a drive with the help of teachers, parents and others to enrol more and more children in schools,` he said. If every teacher was tasked to enrol five children then over 500,000 children could easily be brought into the schools.

The chief minister said that teachers, parents and members of civil society should play a role in efforts to banish the curse of cheating from educational institutions.

`We are also taking practical steps to revamp the Balochistan Public Service Commission so that the deserving candidates could get their due rights,` he added.