PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has planned to send teachers holding administrative positions in the provincial secretariat back to their schools and colleges.

The officials told Dawn on Saturday that many teachers had long been serving in the secretariats of different departments, especially those of the elementary and secondary education department and higher education department, though the government schools and colleges they belonged to were short of teaching staff.They also said many teachers were associated with different projects of donors agencies away from their educational institutions.

The officials said the chief minister had directed the establishment department to gradually send all teachers holding administrative posts in the provincial secretariat back to their schools and colleges.

They said the secretariat was also told to appoint officers of provincial management service (PMS) and Pakistan administrative service (PAS) previously called district and management group to the administrative posts to be vacated by teachers.

The officials said currently, the elementary and secondary education department lacked 14,000 teachers and the higher education department around 1,150 teachers.

They said under the current circumstances, teachers holding administrative posts in the provincial secretariat were happy to work outsideschools and colleges.

The officials said by and large, PAS and PMS officers were not interested to work in the secretariats of the education departments for poor facilities and a heavy workload and therefore, teachers were posted to administrative positions there.

They said teachers used the elected representatives` influence to claim administrative postings.

`There is no attraction for me to work as section officer in the education department,` said a section officer of the PMS group, who currently works in the finance department.

He said the section officers in the secretariats of both education departments had no official car and telephone facility though they had to work in their offices from morning to evening due to a heavy workload.

The section officer said the PAS and PMS officers would love to work in the education departments if the government provide them all facili-ties they were given in other departments.

He said in the secretariats of other provincial departments like finance, planning and development departments, the employees were given bonus and honorarium at the end of the financial year but there was no concept of such financial benefits in the education departments.

A senior official in the higher education department said his department and elementary and secondary educations had time and again requested the establishment department to provide the PMS officers for administrative posts if the PMA officers were not available, but to no avail.

The officials said in light of the chief minister`s orders, the establishment department had decided to take punitive action against the PMA and PMS officers refusing to perform duty in the secretariats of the education departments.