KARACHI Jan 01 (TNS): The Sindh government has decided to re-conduct the test of school teachers for restoration of their jobs.
Also, a high-level meeting presided over by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, has decided that an examination of all government teachers will be conducted after every five years for renewal of their contracts. Those who failed to pass the test will lose their jobs.
Teachers from different districts of Sindh have been protesting outside Karachi Press Club, demanding regularization of their jobs.
Some of their demands are about the promotion of teachers to grade 16 and regularization of services of the teachers working on contracts and those who have passed NTS tests. Their rally outside the press club was baton-charged by police.
Earlier CM chaired meeting on NTS contract teachers to review the progress of education and discuss the matter of NTS pass teachers protesting for their regularization.
The meeting was attended by Education Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, Commissioner Karachi Aijaz Ali Khan, Secretary Law Iftikhar Shahelwani, senior officers of education department and finance department and others.
While presiding over a meeting Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said quality education would emerge in public sector when teaching skills and of will of teaching would develop among the teaching staff.
“I think, there is lack of one or of the both at somewhere which we have to fix through collective efforts.”
The chief minister said that the teaching skills of teachers right from primary to higher secondary level must be improved through professional trainings. There should be a high standard Teacher training academy where special training programs must be designed and launched.
He proposed that the teachers working in the education department should appear in testing system after every five years. In case of their failure, they may be separated from teaching process because this is the question of education of our future generations.
“We are paying huge salaries to teachers so that our children, particularly of poor families could receive quality education but day in and day out the teachers are on the roads for acceptance of their one or the other demand,” he deplored. He went on saying that there is lack of efficiency in our system to address all these issues to government employees coming onto the roads.
The chief minister was told that there were 15649; including 612 HST, 5288 JST, 9749 PST and NTS pass teachers appointed on a contract period of three years. The chief minister asked the chief secretary about the issue of regularization of the NTS contract teachers. On this the chief secretary said that they have completed their three years contract and now they want to be regularized in service.
He read out Para 10 of Terms & Conditions of their appointments which says “In case of extension of contract, the appointee shall work in the specified school for the extended period. Selected candidate shall be evaluated through Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). The government can extend the contract of those candidates who successfully qualified the QTS. It will be mandatory for all contract teachers to qualify QTS during their three-year contract period to become eligible for extension. The maximum three attempts are allowed to appear in the QTS.”
The chief minister directed the Education Minister Jam Mehtab Dahar and Commissioner Karachi to meet the teachers and discuss all these contract clauses with them and the conditions for their regularization. He also directed the chief secretary to personally resolve the time scale issue of teachers.
