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IT officials told to start e-hiring from February
Federal Information Technology Minister Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari last week directed officials of his ministry and all its 16 subsidiary departments to start e-hiring from February next year, said an official statement.
“I want the ministry and its attached departments to be role model for other ministries, public sector organizations and corporations in adopting processes of e-hiring and e-procurement in future,” he said at a meeting of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) budget utilization review held last week on Thursday.
Minister of State for IT Ali Asjad Malhi, Secretary Khalid Saeed, heads of attached departments and other senior officials also attended the meeting.
He said the ministry would follow the process of e-hiring with the process of e-procurement to ensure transparency and save time and public money in such matters.
“Once the e-hiring system is in place, it would help save time and money of applicants to know about possible status of their applications,” he said.
Awais said the system of e-hiring would be used only for posts in grade-6 and above given the low level of education and qualification required for the low-grade jobs which could also cause problems for these candidates in filling out the e-forms to be made available on the ministry websites.
He said the process of e-hiring would also do away with the phenomenon of incomplete or wrongly-filled out applications as the electronically processed applications would be computer- guided and easy to fill out because of the online instructions and guidelines made available side by side with different sections of the application.
The minister said the e-hiring system would also facilitate the process of short-listing and selection of the candidates and the candidates would be able to access all information about these processes online.
He said the ministry and its attached departments would develop or outsource software consistent with their requirements to be used for the purpose of e-hiring and later such models could be adopted by similar organizations in the public sector at a later stage.
The meeting also reviewed progress on the ongoing projects of Electronic Government Directorate (EGD) and Pakistan Computer Bureau (PCB). The EGD has already taken in hand 11 projects which are at different stages of execution while the PCB is implementing two major projects, including setting up of IT labs at about 1100 schools of the country.
Lunar eclipse observed
The last lunar eclipse of 2004 was observed on Thursday morning. A sighting of the eclipse was also made from the University of Karachi’s astronomical observatory at the Institute of Space and Planetary Astrophysics.
The observations through a 6-inch Code Refractor Telescope began at 5.45am PST when the moon appeared brownish due to the penumbral (light) shadow of the Earth.
At 6.14am PST, the partial eclipse began, when the morning light started to dominate. The partially-eclipsed moon quickly faded out at about 6.25am PST.
The moon was set at 6.37am PST in Karachi, almost simultaneously with sunrise.
BZU signs MoU
The Bahauddin Zakariya University and the Model University College (HSM) of Norway have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to establish bilateral cooperation between the two institutions.
The MoU was signed by BZU VC Prof Dr Karamat Ali and HSM rector Martin Risnes. The cooperation between the two institutions will include a scheme for student exchange programme.
As a first step, the HSM is inviting applications from the graduates of the BZU’s department of economics for the doctoral or master’s degree programmes logistics financed by the quota scholarship programme funded through the Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund.
The agreement is signed for a period of four years with the possibility of extension. In case of unilateral withdrawal from it by any of the parties, a six-month notice period will come in force.
The BZU VC has nominated assistant professor Umer Burki of the economics department as the linkage coordinator for the execution of the agreement singed with the HSM.
The HSM is among the 28 educational institutions of the Europe recently awarded the DS label of quality education by the European Commission from among the 1,800 institutions that impart education at the master’s and doctoral level.
It may be added here that the BZU has recently signed an agreement with the United Nations Development Programme, under which the latter will give opportunity to the university’s graduates in economics to be engaged as the young professionals in its (UNDP’s) development schemes being carried out in Southern Punjab. — Sci-tech World Report
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