SWABI, Oct 25: The district government has appointed 596 primary school teachers (PSTs) in the district on contract-basis, official sources told Dawn here on Monday.

The sources said that both male and female teachers were appointed on contract-basis, but those who were working in the education department were employed on permanent basis.

Quoting the terms and conditions the sources said all the appointments were purely on temporary and liable to termination without assigning any reason and without prior notice. The sources said they could not apply for transfer and in case of resignation, a month prior notice is required, otherwise, one- month pay will be forfeited to the government treasury.

The appointments, the sources said, were a long standing demand because there was shortage of teachers in various primary schools in the district.

There are 1,010 primary schools in the district. Among these schools 423 are girls primary schools and 587 are boys primary schools. Total enrolment is 130,887. The number of boys is 84,774 and girls 46,113. The overall literacy rate is 36 per cent. The males are 54 per cent and females 18 per cent.

Provincial education minister who belongs to this district had taken keen interest in the appointments and the district government had also played a key role.

The sources said that the appointments were made under three categories; 25 per cent on merit, 73 per cent on union council basis; one per cent quota was given to the disables and one per cent quota under deceased servant sons quota..

All the appointed teachers were trained, the sources said. The sources said the new appointments would boost the standard of education in the district and there would be no more shortage of staff in primary schools of the district.

Initially, they said, the contract is not for specific period but will depend on their performance and those who failed to deliver according to the demand would be expelled and more fresh appointments would be made.

Among the fresh appointees 337 are males teacher and 259 are females and 10 people were appointed against the disable quota.

Meanwhile, the union council nazims said that the lady teachers and disabled teachers have been appointed in the far-flung areas which would create problem for the teachers.

In this connection they said they had appealed to the concerned officials to take some remedial steps because it might be difficult to perform their duty according to the demand of their service.