K-P to table law on education boards

Proposed law will see the CM appoint officers from PMS, K-PPSC on key posts of education boards

PESHAWAR: To reform the examination system for the elementary and secondary education sector in the province, the provincial government has decided to table the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Boards of Elementary and Secondary Education Act 2020. The draft law proposes taken control away from academics and placing it firmly in the hands of bureaucrats.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Ministry of Education is expected to present the legislation before the provincial assembly when it meets next.

Under the proposed law, the chief executive of the province will appoint officers from the Provincial Management Services (PMS), and the K-P Public Service Commission (K-PPSC) officers — either the Provincial Administrative Services (PAS) or the Provincial Civil Services (PCS) — on the key posts of chairperson, secretary and controllers of the respective education boards.

Moreover, teachers, professors, educationists or other officers of the education department will not be appointed on any of the key posts of controller examinations, chairman of the boards or secretaries.

Furthermore, the people who will be appointed to these posts will be done so based on the recommendations of the Establishment secretary. The chief minister will have the discretion to consider the names provided. If he is unsatisfied, he could ask the establishment department to provide additional names.

Teachers will only be entertained for lower staff in the education boards.

Moreover, the while nomenclatures of the different boards of intermediate and secondary education will be replaced with the K-P Board of Intermediate Education.

A source of in the K-P education department told The Express Tribune that recommendations for the proposed law have been submitted to the K-P Assembly Secretariat for approval in the next session of the provincial assembly. Meanwhile, an umbrella body of schools in the province has expressed deep reservations over the formula proposed in the draft law.

On the appointment of the chairman, secretaries and controllers in boards from the PMS and PCS cadres without including educationists, they said they would protest such a move.

Ex-minister opposes the bill

Former provincial education minister Meraj Humayun Khan on Thursday opposed the proposed Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Boards of Elementary and Secondary Education Act 2020.

Meraj noted that such an important bill needs to be carefully reviewed and consulted before it is passed by the provincial assembly. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2020.