KARACHI: The Sindh law ministry has forwarded a draft law pertaining to the regularisation of thousands of teachers who have been working on contract to the Sindh Assembly to introduce it in its next session expected to begin by the end of this month, it emerged on Sunday.

According to officials in the law ministry, called the Sindh Regularisation of Teachers Appointed on Contract Basis Bill, 2018, the draft law is intended to be introduced in the coming session.

The officials said the bill had been drafted in view of the decision of the provincial cabinet in its meeting held on Dec 30, 2017, which maintained that the services of certain teachers appointed on contract in 2014 through the National Testing Service (NTS) under the teacher recruitment policy (TRP) 2012 and Sindh University under TRP-2008 were to be regularised.

The Sindh cabinet had approved drafting of the bill after several violent encounters of protesting teachers with riot police.

The teachers were baton-charged, obstructed with water cannons and detained by the police during their protests, which were widely flashed on the electronic, print and social media and forced the government to settle the issue amicably.

At the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said the passage of an act by the provincial legislature was necessary for the regularisation of the NTS-passed contractual teachers and the contract teachers of the University of Sindh as per rules. Otherwise, he had added, under the recruitment rules, teachers would have to pass a test for regularisation.

The draft of the bill said it provided for regularisation of the services of those teachers as mentioned above.

“A teacher appointed on a contract basis and holding such appointment on the commencement of this act shall be deemed to have been validly appointed as teacher as a civil servant on a regular basis with effect from the date of commencement of this act,” it said.

It said the orders of the regularisation of services of a teacher would be issued by the appointing authority subject to verification of his/her performance by the Sindh school education and literacy department’s reform support unit.

Besides, the services of a teacher would not be regularised unless one had completed or completed three years of one’s contract period and who did not possess qualifications prescribed for the post and one’s performance was not satisfactory.

The act also makes it mandatory that teachers whose services are regularised under this act “shall not be transferred from the schools for which they were appointed before the expiry of a period of five years in the case of male and three years in the case of female teachers”.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2018