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KARACHI: July 22: The Sindh Public Service Commission has stressed the need for revising and rationalizing the rules of domiciles and permanent residence certificate to check abuse and misuse of the system which the commission came across during scrutiny and interviews.
The commission in its “annual report-2001”, which was submitted to the Sindh Governor, also recalled the adverse fallout of new craze among students for computer education and proliferation of IT and computer institutes in the private sector.
Pointing out that already there is a severe dearth of candidates in the health sector in basic medical sciences and the new trend is further siphoning away good students which could lead to a serious shortage of science teachers in the years ahead.
In its recommendations, the commission stressed the need for taking steps to improve literacy, education, and skills of students.
It proposed holing of combined competitive examinations every year to provide a fair opportunity to the educated and talented youth, otherwise the goal of good governance could not be achieved.
It suggested that rules be amended to give financial and administrative autonomy to the commission and stated that its computerization proposal be approved to streamline the procedure and to handle a greater workload.
During year 2001, according to the report, the commission received and scrutinised a total of 62,287 applications against 7,671 posts; an increase of 54,616 over last year.
This massive increase in workload was due to the induction of HSTs, JSTs, excise and taxation inspectors and ASIs.
By devising new strategies, the commission was able to complete the task of scrutiny, written tests, interviews for 14,500 school-teachers and 7,800 excise inspectors in a short time of 23 and 15 weeks, respectively. It was in addition to its normal work which continues unabated.
Referring to the falling standard of education, the commission observed that most of the universities, colleges and schools in the province continue to produce educated illiterates.
The private institutions are largely profit-oriented and continue to churn out mediocre, with worthless degrees and diplomas.
“As reported last year, the produce of Shah Abdul Latif University & Chandka Medical College continues to perform poorly in written tests and interviews”, the report said.
COMPUTERISATION: The commission also mentioned about the new craze among students for computer education and its likely fall-out in the form of siphoning away good students from basic sciences and consequently, in the year ahead, there is expected to be a serious short-fall of science teachers.
This trend has also resulted in proliferation of private computer institutes, long on promises and profit but woefully short on performance.
Besides, too many aspirants are chasing too few jobs in a rapidly shrinking market, causing a glut of expensively trained, poorly-educated youth desperately seeking jobs other than in their field of specialisation.
QUOTA SYSTEM: The report has also dilated upon abuse and misuse of quota system pointing out that from the scrutiny of forms and interviews it appears that a fairly large number of candidates hailing from other provinces and rural areas of Sindh, apply for jobs against the urban quotas in Karachi.
It can be surmised, that they find it relatively easy to obtain domicile & PRC on form ‘D’ from Karachi.
The Commission accepts the validity of the certificates issued by the various authorities concerned and does not question their bona fides. There is, however, a need to examine this issue in depth and overhaul the rules and regulations relating to issue of domicile and PRC certificates in Karachi.
EXPANSION OF ROLE: The job recruitment in lower categories (B-14 & 15) has increased the workload by more than 450 per cent. Despite voluntary downsizing in the commission, the task was accomplished in a record time.
As the public perceives, this exercise, to have been fairly conducted, vindicates the trust and confidence placed in the Commission by the Government”, the report said and stressed the need for expediting its proposal of computerization, submitted two years back, to further stream-line the procedure and to handle greater workload.
“Despite public pronouncements at the federal and provincial levels in support of IT & computer technology it is incomprehensible why some departments are disinclined to approve the small sum needed”, the report added.
HEALTH DEPARTMENT: During the year, the commission came across a severe shortage of candidates (BPS-20 & 19) in Basic Medical Science subjects which deserved to be addressed at the earliest.
These subjects are anatomy, pathology, physiology, psychiatry, bio-chemistry, pharmacology, community medicine and forensic medicine. In addition, there is also a dearth of candidates having specialization in anaesthesia, ophthalmology, urology, chest diseases, dermatology and of physicians.
The commission has regretted that departments do not feed back on its recommendations which is required vide section 9(2) of Sindh Public Service Commission Act 1989.
Giving an example, the report said that the commission on receiving requirement after duly processing candidates had recommended 48 doctors
(BPS-18,19,20), 148 lecturers (BPS-17), 316 HSTs and 479 JSTs but the departments of health, education do not find it necessary to issue appointment letters as quickly which defeated the monitoring intent of the act.
Regarding recruitment trend in rural and urban areas, the report said it has been observed that “whereas in the junior categories, the rural quota gets filled quickly, the urban quota has a shortfall. The may be indicative of the following factor.
a) good urban candidates do not apply for government jobs. b) Greater job opportunities exist in urban areas in the private sector. c) Most urban candidates, unlike their rural counterpart are working at lower levels of employment hence they can be classified as “under-employed” rather than “unemployed” d) The rural community ethos perceive a strong sense of security in government jobs, albeit of a lower category”.
