There are now 115,000 primary school teachers working in Punjab's government schools, up from 70,000 previous. This is a 45,000 increase.
A news article says that there is a major teacher shortage in the province's more than 9,000 primary schools. These schools typically have only two to three teachers each.
Also, Lahore has more than 1,500 open Primary School Teacher (PST) vacancies. Teachers are finding it difficult to transfer to other schools as a result of this shortage. Moreover, woman teachers have been required to teach students at locations far from their homes for more than five years.
It's important to mention that in the past government, the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) was responsible for assessing the hiring of 14 thousand teachers. However, when the government changed, the teacher hiring process was stopped.
Additionally, there's a need to hire 30 thousand Instructional Support Teams (ISTs) for middle schools throughout the province, along with more than 15 thousand Student Success Teams (SSTs) for higher secondary schools.
According to officials, by 2027, another 30,000 teachers will likely retire. The school education department has issued an alert stating that there's a possibility that the next three years would see significant modifications to the educational system if new teachers aren't hired.