Govt slammed for not filling vacant posts of lecturers

The opposition points out irregularities in the appointments of grade IV employees

LAHORE: Legislators of the treasury benches criticised their own government over the "non-seriousness of the Punjab Higher Education Department" for not filling hundreds of vacant posts of lecturers in different colleges of the province.

In a hotly-debated session on Thursday, Sardar Shahabuddin Khan, from the opposition benches, raised strong reservation over the procedure of appointment of grade IV employees alleging that the merit was ignored altogether in these jobs.



He also alleged School Education Minister Rana Mashhood for ‘warning' the education department secretaries that only his party's (PML-N) MNAs and MPAs would recruit grade-IV employees and threatened that no headmaster or principal would make these appointments otherwise anti-corruption authority would deal with them.

As many as total 19 questions had been included in the first item of PA's agenda but only six could be discussed while the movers of the rest of 13 questions were not even present in the assembly, so their questions were disposed of.

Parliamentary Secretary Higher Education Mehwish Sultana tried to assure the House claiming College Teaching Interns (CTIs) were hired in those colleges where proper lecturers had not been appointed so that the education process does not suffer. She said total 60 posts of lecturers were vacant in four colleges in PP-133 Shakargarh district Narowal and the Higher Education Department has been informed about.

There are 96 vacant posts of lecturers in Sialkot's nine colleges, 14 in Government College for Women Sargodha and several posts are also vacant in Government College for Boys, Layyah, Government College for Women, Kotlakhpat and Government Shah Hussain College for Boys, Township and several other colleges in Chiniot and other parts of the province.



After completing the first agenda of the question-hour on higher education, Opposition leader Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed strongly condemned the increase of Rs3.80 per unit in electricity price, and said it tantamount to ‘bombing the poor masses'.

He said he wanted to present his resolution over this issue but the Speaker said if it was to be presented as a resolution, then the rules need to be relaxed. However, he said if it was an adjournment motion then it could be presented in the same session.

On this, the Opposition leader said he would like to present adjournment motion but in the meantime, PTI's legislator Murad Rass pointed out the lack of quorum upon which the Speaker ordered counting the members present in the assembly. The session was adjourned for Friday as the government could not show up the required number of the legislators.

Interestingly, the government had failed to show up the required number of the legislators in the House for seven times out of total nine house proceedings held between September 11 till September 21.

Only two times the House completed the items on its agenda while the Speaker had to adjourn seven sessions due to lack of quorum.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2017.