LAHORE, Aug 25: The Punjab education department will recruit 13,000 elementary and secondary school educators for school-specific posts on five-year contract basis.

The applicants must be a graduate having professional qualification like PTC, CT, BEd, MA/MEd, BS Ed or MS Ed.

The education department has enhanced the age limit to 45 years because the basic qualification criteria for the posts has been enhanced and there has been a ban on government jobs for quite some time.

At present, as many as 43,157 posts of educators are vacant in the schools education department.

The department has also allocated two per cent quota for disabled people provided they fulfil qualification criteria.

The recruitment policy was formally announced by Punjab Minister for Education Mian Imran Masood at a press conference at the University of Education on Monday.

The minister said the recruitment process would conclude by the end of October this year. A four-member committee would undertake the recruitment process in every district.

The committees would comprise executive district officer (education), district education officer (male or female) and a provincial government nominee.

It would be headed by the district coordination officers (DCO) concerned. The DEO concerned would be the secretary of the committee.

The committee would identify and advertise posts in schools on the basis of enrolment and availability of teachers. Recruitments would also be made for 692 newly-established primary schools.

The minister said that all 34 EDOs (education) in the Punjab were briefed about the recruitment policy at the University of Education earlier in the day.

In order to ensure recruitment on merit, the department had finalized a fool-proof selection criteria, allowing only five marks for interview.

The department had fixed marks for academic and professional qualifications on the basis of percentage of marks obtained. One mark would be given for each year of teaching experience in government schools. The total marks should not be more than five.

“The Punjab government would also get a third-party validation whether or not the recruitments were made on merit,” the minister said.

Imran Masood hoped that the recruitment of graduate educators would help improve the quality of education, particularly in science and English. “Of the 311,040 teachers on schools department strength, at present only 13,577 are graduates,” he said.

In the first phase, he said the Punjab chief minister had allowed recruitment of 13,000 educators. The education department’s target would be to ensure the presence of at least one graduate teacher in each primary school.

The minister said the respective districts would shortlist two per cent disabled candidates and offer them posting in their preferred school.

Saying that the transfer and posting of teachers was the biggest problem of the education department, the minister said that the new recruitment on the basis of non-transferable posts would end the problem. He said the appointment on contract basis would also end the problem of teachers’ absenteeism.

Answering a question, he said an elementary school educator (ESE) would be given Rs4,250 per month and annual increase of Rs200 on satisfactory performance.

Similarly, the Senior ESE (Science) and (Arts) would be given Rs4,500 per month salary and Rs220 annual increment. The Secondary School Education (Science) and (English) would be given Rs5,500 per month salary and Rs275 annual increment.

He said the contract of these teachers would be extended on satisfactory performance.

Answering another question, the minister said that the department had this time ensured the sanctioning of budget to pay the salaries of new educators.

He said the total financial impact of the new appointments would be Rs576.5 million during the ongoing financial year.

Punjab health minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed, who was accompanying Imran Masood, said the health department would also make recruitment against around 10,000 posts of paramedics and other lower grade posts in hospitals all over the province.

Punjab special secretary (schools education) Hasan Nawaz Tarar and University of Education Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Mustafa Habibullah were also present on the occasion.