November 16, 2007	Friday	Ziqa’ad 05, 1428

KARACHI, Nov 15: As the National Internship Programme (NIP) approaches its end with the arrival of fourth batch of 194 incumbents in Sindh, the fate of scores of internees still hangs in the balance as their salaries have been stopped till a clearance is received from Islamabad, sources at the S&GD said on Friday.

These internees were selected by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), and possess only bachelors degrees against a minimum qualification of a masters degree required under the programme.

As soon as it was known that a good number of such internees has been intentionally or inadvertently selected under NIP, the S&GD wrote to all departments and educational institutions to check degrees of internees before giving them assignments.

The HEC has now asked the S&GD to send a list of these internees some of whom are working in the NIP since it was launched in April this year.

The inclusion of candidates with bachelors degrees has blocked the way for a number of genuine post-graduates in Karachi.

A masters degree holder in Islamic Studies from Karachi University told Dawn that she and many of her colleagues were deprived of the internship facility although they meet all the conditions and were still waiting for a word from the HEC.

With the arrival of the fourth batch of 194 internees this week, the total number of internees referred to the S&GD by the HEC has reached 4,472.

The first batch consists of 1,631 internees, second batch 2,084, and the third batch 563.

There is no word from Islamabad about the period of the scheme, but an S&GD official hinted that the arrival of the fourth batch might be the end of the scheme as far as the province is concerned.

Meanwhile after the imposition of state of emergency fears have gripped internees who are worried about their future with the change of the current political setup.

An internee told Dawn that the Sindh AGPR has funds for salaries up to December. “We are not sure about salaries after that,” he said pointing to the change of government.

The S&GD started processing of the fifth batch of 194 internees which they think might be the last batch although they have not been intimated by the centre.

The third batch, which comprised 551 incumbents, had the poorest response among all batches and internees in the list were still reporting for joining the programme.

An internee with an engineering degree, who was selected in the first batch in April, turned up this week to take up his assignment.

Internees with computer and MBA degrees complained that there were no opportunities in the Sindh government departments to improve their professional skills as they have been assigned mostly to paper work.

Most of the departments are not automated, hence there is no chance of learning modern ways of governance, they added.

They, however, learnt a lot about the behaviour of Sindh civil servants who are divided in their dealings with the internees.