KARACHI: Following protests by head teachers who passed the IBA test for permanent jobs but were denied the same, Sindh Minister for Education and Labour Saeed Ghani has said the government is willing to regularise services of all the headmasters but neither provincial cabinet nor the government can do so due to court decisions.

He was addressing a press conference at his camp office along with Sindh Secretary Education Ahmed Bakhsh Narejo on Wednesday. Some 957 headmasters have been protesting outside the Sindh Assembly urging the government to make their services permanent.

“All the protesting headmasters are fully aware that we are bound by the decisions of the Sindh High Court (SHC) Karachi and Hyderabad benches. We have written to the SHC Chief Justice requesting him to form a single bench to decide the matter and we are ready to implement whatever the decision may be,” he said.

He said that they held talks with the headmasters on Tuesday evening and explained to them all the facts and also that the Sindh government did not want to remove them and wanted to make them permanent but it could not go against the court decisions.

Ghani said that the headmasters were recruited on contract under a World Bank project in 2017. “They sat the job test at IBA Sukkur and 957 of them were offered contracts but some were not recruited and they filed a petition (No. 2839/2017) in the SHC, challenging the recruitment,” he said.

He said that when the headmasters’ issue came to cabinet it wanted to make all of them permanent but for the court decisions. The cabinet could not act on its wishes. “Since the case of Ali Azhar Khan Baloch was referred under the order of SHC Karachi, we sent the case to Sindh Public Service Commission to recruit all the headmasters under the commission.

“As a result, some of the same headmasters went to the SHC Hyderabad bench, which issued orders to the Sindh government not to remove the headmasters and continue their salaries,” he said.

“In 2018, the SHC Karachi issued an order directing Sindh Chief Secretary to scrutinise the new recruits and submit a report within two months. The directions also included that the decision of the Ali Azhar Khan Baloch case of the Supreme Court be followed in this case, under which the recruitment to 17th grade is to be done under the Sindh Public Service Commission,” the minister explained.

About textbooks, the minister said that the Sindh Textbook Board published millions of books and these were provided free of cost to schools across the province.

He said the textbooks could not be delivered to a minister, secretary or officer alone because there was a system in place. In case there were any complaints, action was also taken on those complaints and against those responsible. “We have taken steps to make the system more transparent. Due to lack of officers in the department, some additional officers had to be posted on OPS so that work of the department is not affected. However, we are promoting the officers,” he said.

Asked about shortage of furniture in schools, he said that work had been started on it and supply of furniture was also expected soon but its process too had come to a standstill due to a stay order issued by court.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2021