KARACHI, Sept 20: Sindh education department is working on a plan for ad-hoc appointment of about 500 teachers in city colleges for the academic session 2006-07.

Speaking at a press conference called for dissemination of data pertaining to Class XI Commerce admissions at PECHS College for Women on Wednesday, Provincial Education Manager Dr Mohammad Ali Shaikh said that the government was already aware of the fact that city colleges were facing shortage of lecturers and that was why at a recent meeting of the high ups of the department it had been agreed in principle that about 500 lecturers should be appointed as stop-gap arrangement.

He said that over all there was need to appoint over 800 new teachers for posting at old and newly established colleges. Since the sanctioned new expenditures of new colleges established during the last couple of years were yet to be approved it was found necessary to get teachers appointed on ad-hoc basis against payment of an amount equal to the basic salaries offered to a Grade-17 teachers of the mainstream, he added saying that the ad-hoc appointment was necessary as cooperative teachers, normally appointed by principals on payment of Rs4,000 to Rs4,500 through college funds, were inadequate.

He said that the education minister and secretary had appreciated his proposal for appointment of ad-hoc teachers and things would be moved formally to the education department so that teachers in question be appointed and posted to colleges on emergent basis to meet the shortage of teachers in colleges.

Besides, the ad-hoc teachers, it was likely that another 200 teachers would come through the Public Service Commission to colleges.

In replying to a question, he said that as soon as the admission process was over the colleges would also be provided with necessary teaching aids, including equipments and chemicals for laboratories, particularly at 30 new colleges made function during the last three years.

Dr Shaikh said that the decision not to place applicants having passed their SSC exams in D or E grades for admissions to colleges in the first run had been taken in consultation with some senior college principals and all the leftover would be accommodates at colleges where seats were available at some later stage.

He said that there were enough seats to offer admissions to all of the applicants in line with the centralised admission policy of the education department but the D and E graders had been dropped from the first lists of placements only to make the students in question to realize there shortcomings and work hard in future.

“We sold 82,510 admission brochures and forms, out of which 79,910 were received back, while the admission committee has as many as 82,500 seats at city colleges and higher secondary schools. As such, accommodating all the students irrespective of their passing grades will not be any problem at all,” he added.

About the commerce faculty lists for female students which was finalized and handed over to the media on Wednesday, the provincial education manager said that since the number of students desiring admission to first year commerce group was higher than the seats allocated at colleges the admission committee had to increase the seats by 10 to 15 per cent at colleges where classrooms were available.

“Even after the changes, we have been able to accommodate 8,628 female students having passed the examinations with A-1, A, B and C grades at 38 colleges and higher secondary schools, while remaining about 1,160 students with D and E grades will be tried for admission to humanities faculty of colleges,” he said.

ADMISSION LIST: The maximum and minimum marks in the commerce admission list for women in different institutions are as follows: