KHYBER: The leaders of different associations of teachers have taken serious exception to two-month training programme devised for their newly-inducted colleagues in the district. They said that two-month absence of more than 500 teachers would badly affect the studies of thousands of students. They also feared closure of a number of primary schools, especially for girls, as those were already faced with shortage of teaching staff. Gulab Din, the local president of Malgari Ustazan, said that officials of education department failed to include teachers serving in the colder areas in the training programme despite the fact that there were winter vacations during January and February in those areas. He said that schools would face shortage of teachers during the two months of training with annual metric examinations scheduled for March 5. Tanzeem-i-Asateza was also very critical of the two-month training till February 18 and pointed out that the education department recommended even those teachers for the training, who already had possessed professional degrees with more than three years of teaching experience prior to their induction in government schools’ teaching cadre in Khyber. In a statement, it criticised education department for what it called the unprofessional attitude towards teachers training and insisted that none of the local organisations was taken on board while devising the training pattern and selecting timing for it. It said that separate training sessions should be organised for teachers of winter and summer areas with primary focus on maximum attendance of teachers at their respective schools during the training sessions. “It looks very unwise that teachers with professional degrees and over three years of teaching experience at reputed educational institutions outside Khyber are recommended for this training which is both a waste of time and money,” said the statement. Senior academicians of education department also acknowledged that timing for training sessions was not appropriate. Requesting anonymity, they also criticised the selection criteria of ‘unskilled’ teachers and their abrupt induction in the cadre and ignoring the set criteria of inducting only those teachers, who were to undergo such mandatory trainings to become a recognised teacher at a government school. They alleged that political considerations and influential people manipulated the set procedure of teachers’ selection. They advised authorities to reconsider the training schedule and devise a plan that could minimise chances of teachers’ absence from their duty during the obligatory training sessions.