ISLAMABAD, Oct 6: For 340 vacancies, advertised by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) as many as 150,000 applications have been received. Educationists indicate that this shows financial condition in the country is worsening.

According to sources, FDE had advertised 340 vacancies, including 220 vacancies of teachers and 120 vacancies for other staff recruitments and the last date for filing application was September 21.

As holiday was announced by the government on September 21 and there were holidays on September 22 and 23 because of Saturday and Sunday, applications were received for another two working days.

Handling the applications has become a problem for the staff of FDE because around 150,000 applications have been received and FDE does not have the capacity to scrutinise and enter data of all applications within a fortnight.

An officer of FDE requesting not to be identified said it has been decided that at least 10 persons will be called from different schools for data entry.

An economist, Abdul Razzaq, while talking to Dawn said because of energy crisis, private jobs and businesses are affected.

“In the past there was a trend in youth to join the private sector because salaries were much more compared to government sector.

According to survey reports during the last three years, as many as one million people have become jobless in the private sector, making government jobs popular again,” he said.

“Because of less job opportunities not only competition is increasing but crime rate has also risen,” he said.

An applicant for the post of teacher, Mohammad Waseem said if he had known that 150,000 people were applying, he would have never applied.

“The government should create job opportunities for the youth because if they have no jobs, they will get involved in negative activities,” he said.

Director Administration FDE, Shahid Khan confirmed to Dawn that applications received for 340 posts were around 150,000 and said the FDE has been calling data entry operators from different schools to computerise the data.