ISLAMABAD, May 11: The All Pakistan Professors and Lecturers Association has asked Federal Minister for Education Ahsan Iqbal to launch an investigation into the violation of promotion rules in the education department.

The association has also asked the minister to personally go through the SRO-225 issued by the Ministry of Education on March 7, 1990 under the sub-rules of the Civil Servants (Appointment, Promotion and Transfer) Rules 1973 which provide guidelines for promotions on various posts.

The association is of the view that the SRO has been violated over the past eight years and it fears that it can again be misused if the federal minister does not intervene to stop the vested interests to manipulate the rules.

Prof Qasim Masood, secretary coordination of the association, who also heads the FG College Teachers Association Islamabad and Educational Joint Action Committee Islamabad, told Dawn on Sunday that according to the SRO-225, the post of the director general (BPS-20) of the federal directorate of education (FDE) can be filled only on the basis of promotion.

The SRO provide two rules which must be followed while promoting a person as DG FDE. According to the first rule, an employee of the FDE working in BPS-19 who has an experience of 17 years or more in BPS-17 and above should be promoted to the BPS-20 from BPS-19 as the DG of FDE.

The second rule allows the promotion of a senior most principal of any of the federal government degree colleges working in BPS-19 but with 17 years or more teaching experience in BPS-17 or above.

He said the education minister should himself study the SRO and order investigations into the misuse of the promotion rules in the appointments of the FDE.

The association has also demanded the FDE to issue a fresh seniority list of the teachers and ensure that the top slots went to the deserving people. He said over the last two years, the FDE had not issued the seniority list of the teachers which had created numerous complications.

He said at present Dr Shahnaz Riaz, senior most director at the FDE and Mohammad Azhar Bhatti, principle of F-10 Degree College, were the most deserving people for the post of the head of the FDE.

He alleged that the existing nepotism in the FDE had deprived both the officials of due promotions and people 18 steps junior to them had been promoted to grade-20, while they still lingered on in grade-19.