Dept of College Education ‘plagued by favouritism’

The movers and shakers in the Sindh College education department are allegedly hindering promotions of teachers on one pretext or the other despite availability of seats.

Teachers working at the department told The Express Tribune that only the blue-eyed employees having the blessings of the 'right people' in the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government get promotions, postings and perks of their desire.

Selective promotion of teachers on the basis of 'links' rather than merit and seniority continued throughout the tenure of former Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani, the teachers claimed, requesting anonymity as they feared repercussions from higher authorities.

Sindh College Education Secretary Khalid Haider Shah was contacted for his comment on the issue but he did not respond to repeated phone calls and messages.

According to the sources, the promotion of teachers is blocked on the pretext of unavailability of the seniority list. Whereas, teachers of cadres whose seniority list has been prepared are also not getting promoted, they claimed, adding that hundreds of teachers are getting retired without promotion.

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Sources in the department said that on July 29 a final seniority list of associate professors (male) in BS-19, who are expecting their promotions to the post of professor BS-20, was issued, however, after passing of more than 20 days neither a recommendation has been sent for convening the board meeting for the promotion of these teachers nor has the department of college education made any kind of contact with the office of the Sindh chief secretary.

The final seniority list for the grade 19 associate professors has been issued after the passing of about six months.

Earlier the aforementioned list had been issued on February 4 by the name of 'provisional seniority list'. There is also no difference between the list issued after the passing of six months and the provisional list which had been issued at the start of February but still the college education department spent six months on its publication.

Moreover, the final seniority list issued in July and the provisional seniority list issued in February are, in fact, in accordance with the Grade 19 seniority list prepared on September 21, 2020 and this reflects the slow pace of the college education department, which spent nine months from the preparation of the seniority list of Grade 19 male teachers till its final publication.

On the other hand, even after a delay of nine months the promotion of Grade 19 teachers into Grade 20 professors is still being avoided. Whereas the matter pertaining to the promotions of Grade 19 female teachers and Grade 18 and Grade 20 male and female teachers is even more complicated.

Even the final seniority list of the aforementioned grades is not available and the teachers of the aforementioned grades are also awaiting their promotions.

Recently a departmental promotion committee (DPC) meeting was held for promoting the staff appointed on the posts of director physical education into the next grades although its final seniority list is not available. However, due to the fact that several favourites, including a woman, were included in the list, therefore, the DPC was held.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 11^th, 2021.