Pak High Commission in India shuts its inhouse school because of financial crisis

The embassy is finding it hard to meet day-to -day expenses and fulfil its basic requirements.

NEW DELHI: The Pakistan High Commission in Delhi has been forced to shut down its in-house school that was used exclusively by the members of the High Commission. As a result, all the staff employed in the school, all of whom were Indian nationals, have been terminated from their job.
This unprecedented step is being attributed to the economic and financial crisis that Pakistan has been facing. The embassy is finding it hard to meet day to day expenses and fulfil its basic requirements.
As per a notice issued by the High Commission to its teaching and non-teaching staff, the decision to shut down the school has been attributed to “low enrolment”. The Sunday Guardian has accessed these service termination notices which the commission has issued to its officials in the past one month. These notices carry the signature of Pakistani chargé d’affaires Salman Sharif. Around 30 students were enrolled in this school, out of which about 25 were shifted to “outside” schools, the cost of which is to be borne by the respective parents themselves. After this, by giving the rationale that it was not viable to have a full school consisting of one principal, six teachers and one non-teaching staff for five students, the school was shut down last month.
According to people aware of the matter, in the new budget that will be announced in Pakistan next month, no budget allocation was made for the school in Delhi.
Sources aware of the developments said that the financial crisis in Islamabad had led to a situation where even the salaries of the staff members posted in Delhi are being delayed and reduced.
The school teaching staff were getting their salaries after a gap of more than 5-6 months.
The Sunday Guardian reached out to the High Commission for a response, but none was received till the time the story went to press.
In April last year, the official Twitter handle of the Pakistani embassy in Siberia had put out a tweet stating that the staff had not been paid their salaries for the past three months. A similar tweet was then shared by the handle of the embassy in Argentina.