MUZAFFARGARH, Nov 17: The Punjab government has stopped the recruitment of educators and candidates have decided to launch a protest against this decision.

The district education department had advertised vacancies of schoolteachers in September and the vacancies were to be filled before November. However, the department received directives from the Punjab government in the last week of October to abandon the process.

An official told Dawn that at least 6,235 candidates had filed around 14,000 applications for various posts in the district and monitoring teams had also prepared the merit lists for tests and interviews.

An aspirant Munawar Hussain, an MSc mathematics belonging to Kotaddu, said the decision had disappointed him because he was to become the sole breadwinner of his family.

Asma Riaz, a first division BA/BEd belonging to Murad Abad, also bemoaned shelving the process. She said that it was for the first time that she was dreaming of her selection purely on merit because she had been a victim of political influence in recruitments during the previous government.

Some applicants belonging to Kotaddu and Alipur said that they would hold a protest demonstration in front of Multan Press Club if the government did not resume the process. They alleged that the government had collected Rs1.4 million from them through banks but shelved the process.

Education district officer Naseem Saleem said that the education secretary had directed them to stop the recruitment process till further orders.