SHANGLA/LOWER DIR: Many candidates could not appear in the written tests for education department posts in different cadres on Sunday due to failure of the National Testing Service (NTS) in arranging the centres at proper locations.

The candidates told mediapersons that despite the deputy commissioner’s directives for change of test centres to facilitate the candidates, these were not changed.

Jamshid Ali Shah, who had applied for CT-IT post, said he had to go to Puran from Bisham travelling a distance of 80km but due to snow at Yakhtangay he could not attempt the test. “Like me there are many other candidates who could not reach the test centres due to one reason or the other.”

Ayesha, a female candidate who had applied for two different posts, could appear in only one test, as the location of the other centre was at a distant place.

She said most of the girls also faced the same problem.

The candidates demanded of the government to take action against the NTS officials for mismanagement as Shangla was a mountainous district where going from one tehsil to the other took two to four hours.

Meanwhile, traffic on main Timergara-Chakdara Road, Timergara-Khall Road and Balambat-Munda Road in Lower Dir remained blocked due to the NTS written tests for recruitment of teachers at different locations.

“I reached Talash from Maidan in five hours,” Zarawar Khan, a retired district education officer, told Dawn. He had to address a teachers’ function at Talash but could reach on time.

A candidate said the written test had already started when he reached the examination centre at Tarai.

He said majority of motorists had parked their vehicles wrongly on the roadsides that caused traffic mess.

An official of the education department said the testing agency had arranged the written test at centres that had no parking facility. He said all the centres were situated near the main Timergara-Chakdara Road.

Though the traffic police had deployed a good number of personnel near the centres but they too failed to maintain smooth traffic flow on the road.

The candidates demanded of the NTS authorities to arrange such tests at feasible places so they could reach there easily in tim

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2021