Underpaid and Overworked Teachers in Pakistan

Teaching is that one profession that creates all other professions, like seriously, where would you be without good teachers? In Pakistan, the teachers are grossly underpaid, unappreciated and tediously overworked, and this is an issue that not many talk about.

Education can make or break a nation, everyone knows that, but yet there’s very little being done to improve the education here in Pakistan. From government to private institutes and everything in between, the educational system is highly inconsistent and incompetent, the biggest reason being the treatment of teachers. Teachers here are so grossly underpaid (especially in schools) that nobody willingly wishes to choose teaching as a career after a university degree because it pays so little and is yet an extremely demanding job. An average private school targeted to middle class offers an amount between 3k – 15k a month to new teachers, out of whom many aren’t even rightly qualified for the job.

The profession is so underestimated and poorly established that people who are competent and highly qualified, would rather go and work in the corporate sector than academia. In Pakistan, unfortunately, every Tom, Dick and Harry is a teacher, most of the people join the teaching profession because they want to kill time, or have nothing better to do. This results in the hiring of incompetent teachers who know nothing about teaching methodologies or ways of assessing the students and identifying with them, and neither are these teachers given proper training to do so. And all of these factors combined affect the quality of education being provided in schools and colleges. Had the school hired competent and trained professionals, the child would not need tuitions or extra help.

But teachers are underpaid all over the world…

Now, we agree that teachers are vastly underpaid all around the world, even in the UK and US, the teachers are underpaid and there’s no denying that. But not for the same reasons as Pakistan. In most of the countries, majority of the schools are public schools (funded by the government and local councils), and the school education is FREE until the age of 18. These public schools have limited funding to pay their staff and that is why salaries are low. However, in Pakistan it’s a totally different ball game, private education is more like a business here. All schools charge fees and most are private here. These fees vary depending on how exclusive the school markets itself to be; it’s a brand game with the well-known school franchises charging a ridiculous amount from every student, but even the average schools are charging a considerable amount these days and yet they pay pennies to the teachers. And this is downright wrong. They are not schools, they are money making businesses. If delivering high quality education was their priority, they would value their staff and pay them accordingly whilst attracting more seasoned professionals in this field.