By
Rasheed Sarwan Nasar
Overcrowded Schools refer to educational institutions that exceed their intended capacity, leading to an imbalance between the number of students and available resources, including teachers, classrooms, and educational materials. Overcrowding can compromise the quality of education, lowering students’ ability to learn effectively and teachers’ ability to provide personalized instructions. When classrooms are overcrowded, individualized attention becomes nearly impossible. A crowded and noisy classroom can impede concentration and lead to frustration among students. According to the available research, the average class size of OECD Countries (37 countries, which includes most of the European countries including the United States) is 24.1, which is also recognized as international standard for the number of students.
in each classroom. Such an average class size provides valuable information on students’ learning environment and can increase opportunities for students to receive personalized attention from their teachers and reduce the burden on teachers often associated with managing students.
In district Zhob, unfortunately, government schools in Zhob city are overcrowded and have triple times increased number of students in most of the classes of Government Boys Model Higher Secondary School Zhob. The said school is situated in the center of Zhob city. At 10th September 2025, when three of the classrooms (8th, 9th and 10th) were observed, it was seen that 92 students were sitting in class-8, 68 students were sitting in class-9 and 73 students were sitting in class-10. There may be multiple reasons of the said overcrowded phenomenon, but the major one is complicated government policy towards construction of new schools. Balochistan government has a policy that land should be voluntarily be given by community for construction of new schools. Then building for school will be constructed by government on that land. In contrast, the land in Zhob city is expensive, due to which none of the community member can dare for its free of cost devotion to Schools. The said reason is also hurdle in the sense of upgradation of Primary and Middle Schools as there is no sufficient space for construction of new rooms for the classes. As a result, the classes in government schools of Zhob city are overcrowded that adversely affect the students learning outcomes, increases stress, heavier workloads, making it difficult to provide individualized attention and delivery of lectures by teachers in an effective and efficient manner.
To conclude, the government of Balochistan, provincial representatives, Deputy Commissioner Zhob, Commissioner Zhob division and all concerned stakeholders are appealed to probe into the matter, make strategies and implement it in true spirit for the purpose of resolving the major issue of overcrowded classes in government schools of Zhob city, so that the quality of education can be improved and better educational outcomes can be achieved.
