Govt clarifies cancellation of proposal to appoint physical education, music teachers in primary schools

The government today (4 November) issued a statement clarifying that the proposal to appoint physical education and music teachers in government primary schools was cancelled following a review by the Secretaries' Committee, which found flaws in the project's planning and implementation feasibility.

"Various reports published in the media regarding the cancellation of the proposal to appoint physical education and music teachers in government primary schools have drawn the attention of the interim government," said the statement issued by the Chief Adviser's Press Wing this evening.

Noting that an initial decision had been taken to appoint an equal number of physical education and music teachers in 2,500 clusters of primary schools across the country, it said: "Recently, based on the recommendation of the Secretaries' Committee, the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education moved away from that decision."

The statement said: "The Secretaries' Committee opined that there were flaws in the project's planning. Appointing such a small number of teachers would not bring any effective benefit to the primary education level and would create inequality. There are 65,569 primary schools across the country."

"It would not be possible to implement the proposed appointments in most of these schools. If appointments were made on a cluster basis, a single teacher would have to serve simultaneously in more than 20 schools. The committee believes that managing working hours in such a situation would not be feasible," it added.

The committee further opined that, subject to the availability of funds in the future, the creation of teaching positions for such new subjects in all schools and subsequent appointments to those posts may be considered, the statement said.