March 14, 2008	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1429

KARACHI, March 13: At a time when a number of schools in Sindh are either closed for want of teachers or facing an acute shortage of teachers, the year-long exercise undertaken by the provincial education department to fill up 8,000 vacant posts of primary and junior schools teachers failed to yield positive results.

On the eve of the February 18 general election the executive district officers issued thousands of appointment letters of primary and junior schools teachers in their respective districts in haste despite the fact that they were asked not to make appointments during the caretaker set-up and a ban on fresh appointments was placed by some high officials of the Sindh government.

However, all the newly appointed teachers except those in district Nawabshah could not join their duties.

The letters were not entertained because most candidates who managed to get the appointment letters had either not appeared in the written tests for the appointment of teachers conducted by the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Sukkur, or their names were not mentioned in the merit list of successful candidates issued by the IBA.

Well-placed sources said that when Education Secretary Shafiq Khoso came to know about the appointment letters, he asked medical superintendent of Services Hospitals not to conduct medical tests of candidates. Since clearing a medical test is mandatory to join duty, the newly appointed teachers were refused medical tests and they remained unable to join their duties.

Among them were 2,000 candidates from Karachi who were not entertained at the Services Hospital.

Another objection against the candidates from Karachi was that majority of them had not appeared in the tests conducted by the IBA Sukkur yet they had been issued appointment letters.

Sources said that the provincial education secretary was asked by some top officials a couple of days back to allow the candidates to join their duties but the former reportedly sought time to verify their names in the list issued by the IBA.

Moreover, they said, the candidates were supposed to complete all formalities, including medical tests, within 15 days after receiving appointment letters.

However, they failed to do so within the prescribed period.

Sources attributed the transfer of a former education secretary, Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, who was asked to report to the federal government last week, to the matter of appointment letters of teachers issued during the caretaker set-up.

Sources said that although 12,000 vacant posts of high, primary and junior school teachers (HSTs, PSTs and JSTs) had been lying vacant across the province for long but the Sindh education department had initiated the process of recruiting around 8,000 primary and junior school teachers last year.

After inviting applications, the candidates were asked to appear in a written test which was conducted by the IBA, Sukkur.

All the candidates who were declared successful in the tests later appeared in an interview arranged by the education department. But the process of issuing appointment letters to the candidates who had qualified the tests and interview could not be initiated by the elected government.

When the caretaker setup came into power the chief secretary issued a circular to all the government departments, asking them not to make any appointment in their department concerned.

Meanwhile, about 1,100 non-teaching staff, including lab attendants and naib qasid, who too were issued appointment letters during the caretaker set-up have already joined their duties.

However, the regional director (college education) has reportedly refused to allow 270 of them to join their duties, saying that the appointment of non-technical staff in colleges was the sole prerogative of the head of institutions concerned.

A list of 270 non-technical staff appointed for colleges by the education department was sent by director-general (college education) to the regional director.