PESHAWAR: The newly implemented online transfer policy of elementary and secondary education department proved ineffective as out of 10,858 vacant positions of teachers, only 949 were filled across the province, according to sources.

Under the online transfer policy titled “E-Transfer Policy for Teaching Cadre”, the first batch of teachers was transferred on Thursday. It showed that unattractive vacant posts of teachers could never be filled through that policy in years to come, an official in the education department told Dawn.

Under the policy, the district education officers would upload the number of vacant positions for all teaching cadres in the last week of February every year. The teachers desiring transfer would submit online transfer applications against the vacant positions and transfer will be made in the month of March.

Only 949 posts of more than 10,000 have been filled under new policy

“In this way, the district education officers across the province had uploaded 10,858 vacant posts for online transfer,” sources said. They said that only 2,093 teachers had applied for the transfer against such a large number of vacant positions.

They said that during the evaluation of online applications, only 949 were found eligible as the rest of them did not fulfil the criteria.

Most of the uploaded vacant positions were in the rural and unattractive areas where no one wanted to be deputed, causing longer delay in the posting of teachers and wastage of precious time of students, sources said.

The general secretary of School Officers Association, Samiullah Khalil, told Dawn that the online transfer policy of the education department failed to fill the vacant positions as under the new policy teachers couldn’t be transferred without their willingness in normal situation.

“Under the new policy, teachers working in the urban and attractive areas would not be transferred while those working in the far off places would remain there forever,” said Mr Khalil. He said that different associations of teachers suggested to the education department when the policy was being chalked out that teachers should performed by rotation in the hard and unattractive areas of the province.

However, he said, no importance was given to their suggestions.

Minister for Elementary and Secondary Education Akbar Ayub Khan was not available for comments.

An official of education department, when contacted, said that teachers were avoiding to be posted in the far off areas and that’s why most of the vacant posts could not be filled.

“We have no option but make fresh appointments on the remaining 9,909 posts for which the teachers have not opted for transfer,” he said.

He added that education department was contemplating on floating advertisement for fresh appointments on the vacant positions across the province.

Under the online policy, teachers in BPS-16 are not eligible to transfer from one district to other district.

“The district cadre positions shall be non-transferable as it (such transfers) defeats the entire purpose of merit,” declares the ‘Posting Transfer Policy of Education Officers at District Level.

Certain indicators are set for the transfer including teachers’ evaluation, their own and students’ attendance, student-teacher ratio in classroom, tenure of deployment in hard areas, results of monthly tests of students and annual examination results.

A total of 10 marks are fixed for the teacher’s attendance.

The teachers with 95 per cent attendance and above will get 10 marks, while it will decease with lower attendance.

Similarly, if a teacher’s students show 90 per cent attendance or above, he or she will get 10 marks, which will decrease if the students’ attendance goes down.

One mark per monthly test will be awarded to teachers and 10 for nine monthly tests or above and the school’s headmaster would issue certificate for the purpose.

The annual examinations result percentage has to be considered in the transfer of teachers as 10 marks would be distributed on the basis of the percentage of results of matriculation or intermediate examinations.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2020