ISLAMABAD, Oct 9: A large number of clerical staff working in the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) and attached institutions are not conversant with typing and other office work, it has been learnt.

A communique issued by the administration director Raja Abdul Hafeez to the heads of institutions and FDE directors says: “It has come to the notice that many of the clerks serving in FDE and attached institutions do not know typing and official work assigned to them.”

It is prerequisiste for the clerical staff to have typing speed of 30 words per minute. This obviously demonstrates that rules were violated at the time of their recruitment.

Sources in the FDE said most of them were recruited during the Benazir and Nawaz regimes.

The FDE authorities have now decided to take a typing test of the clerks serving with it and its attached departments. The typists have been given three months to learn typing and acquire the desired speed of 30wpm. Typing test would be conducted by an independent organization.

Clerks have been officially warned that all those who fail to qualify the test will be removed from service.

These clerks have been serving in this organization for several years. A large amount of public money has been wasted in salaries given to these clerks, who totally lacked the skill for which they were recruited. This also impacted adversely on their performance, memorandum said.

Clerks, on the other hand said most of them did not have a typing machine to work and it was unfair of the authorities to expect them to learn the skill afresh.

“While threatening the clerks with expulsion from service, it would be more prudent to investigate who recruited them in violation of the rules,” an FDE official said.—Zahrah Syed