KARACHI, March 23: The City Nazim, Niamatullah Khan, has reiterated that the city government would open 10 new colleges each year according to its plan, saying construction of five out of 10 new colleges for the year 2005 had been completed.
“We opened new colleges in the city despite difficulties and hurdles and started a process of providing education by hiring honorary lecturers at these colleges. The determination of these honorary lecturers is admirable, as they are educating the nation’s children free of cost.”
This he said while speaking at a dinner reception hosted in honour of honorary teachers and the CAP committee members at the city govt secretariat on Tuesday night. He distributed commendation certificates among teachers and hailed their services.
The city nazim said certificates was not the actual reward for these volunteer teachers, adding their actual reward lay with the Almighty Allah.
Mr Niamat urged that those who had been teaching voluntarily in the colleges during the last few years be provided permanent employment on merit basis.
He said that some 450 applications had been received on his appeal of free-of-cost teaching in colleges, out of which 140 candidates were selected. These honorary teachers were not even paid travel allowance.
“There are many good people in the city who are always eager to serve the country and nation,” he added.
The nazim said nations who distanced themselves from education could not flourish; the city government, keeping in view this notion, had allocated 31 per cent amount of its budget for education and such a huge amount has never been allocated in any provincial or federal budget.
The EDO Higher Education, Prof Rais Alvi, said about 30 new colleges had been opened during the last three years and honorary teachers had been serving in these new colleges free-of-cost since then.
He said the city government had no authority to recruit lecturers on ad hoc basis, but if authorized, it would prefer honorary teachers on such positions.
Prof Alvi claimed that Karachi’s colleges were the best in Pakistan and the honorary teachers the best among teachers.
He informed that the Sindh province was short of 1,500 teachers. Nearly 400,000 applications were received for 486 posts of teachers, but no a single recruitment was made since 2003, he added.
The Adviser to City Nazim on Education, Naseem Siddiqui, President Sindh Professors Lecturers Association (SPLA) Prof Riaz Ahsan, Chairperson Education Committee, City Council Rehana Afroze and others also spoke.—PPI
