KHAIRPUR: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah distributed 1,022 job offer letters to qualified candidates coming from across Khairpur district at a ceremony held on the eve of Independence Day at Sachal Auditorium Hall.

Speaking at the ceremony, which continued late into Wednesday night, Mr Shah said that providing jobs to unemployed people in large numbers was the continuation of the Pakistan Peoples Party’s most popular policy of ensuring ‘Roti, Kapra aur Makan’ (food, clothes and shelter) for everyone. “Government employees are paid handsome salaries against their jobs to enable them to arrange for Roti, Kapra aur Makan for themselves and their family members on their own,” he argued, and said this was the mission of the PPP founder leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and carried forward by his successors Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and thousands of other party leaders and activists.

“The mission guarantees prosperity of the country and the nation,” he said, and vowed to accomplish it with the support of the masses. The chief minister said that jobs were being provided strictly on a merit basis without any discrimination of candidates’ political affiliation or belief.

After handing over offer letters to qualified male and female candidates for the posts of primary school teacher (PST) and junior school teacher (JST), the chief minister said he hoped the newly appointed teachers would help improve the standard of education at the schools level.

Ignoring merit and spending less on this sector in the past were the main reasons for the declining standard of education in Sindh, he observed, and told the audience that his government was not only ensuring merit strictly in recruitment and results, but also spending Rs8 billion, as against the previous tenure’s allocation of Rs2 billion, to bring about a revolutionary change in the education sector.

The huge amount of funds was being utilised in the establishment and construction of educational institutions as well as providing every possible facility and assistance to students and teachers in order to produce a highly educated and talented lot. He expressed the hope that teachers would shoulder the government’s responsibility in an efficient manner.

Mr Shah said as many as 120 schools are being established in Sindh with the assistance of USAID. “My government wants the number to be doubled,” he said, and added that a request for recommendation had been made by him to the US consul-general during a recent meeting with him.

Sindh Senior Minister for Education and Literacy Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, speaking at the ceremony, sincere, efficient and hard-working teachers and talented students would always be encouraged by his department. He vowed to produce such an educated lot that could easily compete with highly educated people of any other country. He offered his department’s full assistance and cooperation to teachers in this regard.

Several PPP MNAs and MPAs, Sukkur Commissioner Mohammad Abbas Baloch as well as officials of the district administration and education department attended the ceremony.

Later, in reply to a question by a media person, the chief minister acknowledged that drought in Tharparkar had claimed lives of some women and children but his government was being wrongly blamed for that. “We had timely sent doctors, paramedics, volunteers and medicines, etc to the affected areas but some doctors reportedly preferred to run their own private clinics over rendering their services in the drought-hit areas.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2014