Merit: 14,000 more teachers to be appointed in Sindh

Teachers need to score at least 60% in an IBA-administered test.

KARACHI:

Fourteen thousand more teachers will be appointed across Sindh to empty posts, announced the senior minister for education and literacy, Pir Mazhar ul Haq, on Wednesday.

The posts are for primary school, junior and high school teachers. He said that they will get the jobs after they sit a test at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Sukkur and at Sindh University. “These appointments will also be completely on merit,” he announced. “The interested candidates should start preparing for the test.”

A press statement issued by the education department said that the minister signed a summary extending for another three months the contracts of the teachers who passed the IBA test earlier on. A law will also be made in the next session of the Sindh Assembly to give them permanent jobs. “We have brought an end to political interference and bribery in education and sowed the seeds of ‘merit’,” he added. A day ago, the minister had announced that despite World Bank misgivings the Sindh government would give permanent jobs to 5,800 teachers who passed the IBA test in 2007.

The bank feared that their performance would deteriorate if they were assured of permanent jobs - that is, they couldn’t be sacked.

The teachers are appointed if they pass the IBA test with 60%. Almost 7,495 teachers who met the standard will get jobs.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2011.