The chief minister wants a reforms plan and timeline next week, monthly and annual examinations in schools, rewards for top performers and vacant head teacher posts filled within 45 days.
LAHORE: Chief Minister Punjab Maryam Nawaz on Thursday expressed displeasure over the poor performance of Class IX students in examinations and ordered immediate action against teachers associated with results below 20 per cent.
According to an official statement issued on Thursday, a decision was also taken to link teachers’ performance with students’ examination results and to introduce monthly and annual examinations in schools. The chief minister directed the education authorities to present a comprehensive timeline and reforms plan next week.
“Point-scoring alone will not improve government schools; there has to be actual improvement,” the chief minister said, adding that teachers’ efforts should be reflected in students’ results.
The decision places responsibility for results squarely on classroom performance. By linking teachers’ performance with their students’ examination results, the government is signalling that pass rates will become a central yardstick in how teachers are assessed.
The statement did not specify how teachers associated with results below 20 per cent would be identified, what form the action against them would take, or how the proposed monthly and annual examinations would be structured. Those details are expected to be set out in the reforms plan due next week.
The accountability measures were paired with incentives. The chief minister ordered that schools securing the best results be rewarded, with prizes for top-performing schools in each district.
The meeting also decided to introduce evening coaching for academically weak students in government schools and to discourage the practice of removing weaker students from schools. That second decision carries particular weight: once pass percentages become the yardstick for judging schools and teachers, there is an obvious risk that weaker students are pushed out before examinations rather than helped to improve.
On staffing, the chief minister directed that vacant head teacher posts be filled within 45 days and that subject specialists be appointed in government schools. She also directed the education minister to ensure monitoring and inspection at all levels.
She further sought district-wise monthly performance ratings of schools and approved the introduction of a “Unified Monitoring App” for school monitoring. The chief minister also sought a performance report of outsourced schools, a notable request given that the provincial government has presented the handover of under-performing public schools to private operators as a reform to improve enrolment and results.
Not all the news was bleak. The chief minister expressed satisfaction over the performance of Government Girls High School Bhon in Jhang, which secured the top position in terms of results. Government girls’ high schools in Muzaffargarh and Layyah stood second and third, respectively.
The meeting also decided to launch a pilot project of “Library on Wheels” from Lahore. The three-wheeler mobile library, equipped with solar-powered charging, will carry more than 20,000 digital books and offer video-learning lectures.
The directives follow a bruising results season for public schools. Under the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Lahore alone, the overall Class IX pass rate stood at 46.51 per cent, as The Lahore Times reported earlier this month. Of the 280,676 candidates who appeared, 130,543 passed. Board figures reported by Daily Times showed that only about 39 per cent of government school students in Lahore passed, compared with around 70 per cent from private schools.
The numbers quickly became a political flashpoint, with Jamaat-e-Islami chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman citing the ninth-grade failure rate in an attack on the provincial government’s education record. The school system has also faced pressure on other fronts, including PEEDA action against Lahore school heads over missed admission targets, even as the government moves to make artificial intelligence a compulsory subject in public schools.
The reforms plan due next week is expected to spell out how examination results will feed into teacher evaluation and what action will follow for poorly performing classrooms. How the government weighs factors outside a teacher’s control, such as staff shortages, infrastructure gaps and students’ socio-economic backgrounds, is likely to decide whether the measures produce the “actual improvement” the chief minister has demanded.
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