Lahore: A total number of 60,548 posts of teaching staff and heads of institutions (around 16 percent of the total sanctioned strength) are lying vacant at present in the 64,155 educational institutions (male and female) at various academic levels in Punjab.

The data compiled recently by Punjab Educational Management Information System (EMIS) reveals 56,585 posts are vacant in government schools 3,736 seats in higher education while 161 and 66 slots remain unoccupied in special education and teacher education sectors, respectively.

There are a total number of 203,202 sanctioned posts of teachers in male schools and 30,604 (15,06 percent) are vacant at present. In the female schools, 152,749 teachers are sanctioned while 24,460 (16 percent) of them are still unoccupied.

As per details, 3,798 male imams, 17,265 PTC teachers (9926 male and 7339 female), 4,466 vernacular teachers (2,345 male and 2121 female), 2376 Arabic teachers (910 male and 1466 female), 1,030 drawing masters (601 male and 429 female), 3,830 physical training instructors (1561 male and 2,269 female), 1667 oriental (Urdu) teachers (928 male and 739 female), 4276 elementary English teachers (2,120 male and 2,156 female),4,247 elementary science teachers (2443 male and 1,804 female), 1086 secondary schools science teachers (664 male and 422 female) and 3,540 SSTs Arts (1610 male and 1930 female) are missing from the government schools.