KARACHI: Policy on teachers’ pay rise test changed
By Mukhtar Alam
KARACHI, Dec 3: The Sindh Education department has revised its policy with regard to qualifying test for school teachers seeking advance increment or financial benefit on the basis of Bachelor or Masters’ degrees in Education.
Sources in the department said that in future aptitude or qualifying tests would be held only for those teachers who had passed their respective MEd or BEd examinations under the off- campus academic programmes run by different general and specialised public sector universities in the province.
The Education department had instituted a test for all those school-teachers who had applied for advance/additional salary increments on the ground that they had acquired additional qualification of MEd or BEd. The system of giving advance increment to school-teachers on the basis of their MEd or BEd qualifications was introduced some three years back, it was learnt.
However, in view of rising financial implications on this account, the government gave a second thought and devised some methods to curtail the payments made to MEd and BEd teachers. At a high level official meeting it was realized that the government was paying millions of rupees in the shape of advance increment, while the teachers were failing to show any significant improvement in teaching at schools.
The Sindh Education department conducted the first test of its kind on November 25 in Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana and Sukkur, amid protest and boycott. Only half of the applicants having passed their MEd or BEd examinations from regular teachers’ training institutions, universities or study centres established by universities at different places in the provinces appeared in the test at four centres, while there was a complete boycott of examinations by 187 registered candidates at Mirpurkhas.
The idea of the test was not taken wholeheartedly by the teaching fraternity and since November 25 there has been a series of protests, demonstrations and boycott of teaching activities at schools in different parts of the province. Teachers were of the view that the introduction of the test was not in line with the norms and practices as followed by the government in other cases of promotions and increments and the test was not only insulting for them but also tantamount to undermining the working of authorities conducting the MEd or BEd courses test.
A circular of the Sindh Education department issued on December 1, said that only those teachers/candidates who had passed their BEd/MEd from Off-Campus Programmes would be required to clear the test/examinations instituted by the Sindh government, for financial benefit/advance increments, if any.
Sources in the department said that government was perturbed over the way graduates were being enrolled and sent up for examinations in the subject of Education.
They said that following hue and cry in the press, a meeting of the Sindh Education department was held in July 2000 wherein it was brought on the record that about 13,500 candidates enrolled at 131 off-campus study centres were examined for Education degree during a year. Most of the candidates were already employed at government run schools in the province and were enrolled at study centres established by different universities in the school buildings that lacked the facilities and staff for specialised education in teaching, added the source.
It was further learnt that the universities were allowed to conduct such programmes by the competent authorities in order to earn additional amount of money. The universities in question had complained to the authorities that they were running in deficit and should be allowed to run such courses, added the source and pointed out that enquiries showed that BEd and MEd programmes were run without meeting the requirements of curricula and prescribed time duration required for the courses.
The Education department, which had applied a uniform criterion of qualifying tests for all MEd and BEd degree holding teachers earlier, had now revised its policy and decided to exempt the teachers having completed their higher degree education from regular teachers’ training institutions, affiliated by general universities, or education departments of different universities in the province. Candidates passing out from regularised institutions would now not be required to appear in qualifying.aptitude test, added a senior official of the department.
