The top brass of the provincial government may well have declared an education emergency in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, but it seems that relevant officials failed to get the memo as employees recruited at the teaching staff cadre are being appointed to administrative or even managerial posts. This is despite longstanding instructions by the federal government not to indulge in such practices.
Observers have noted that these inconsistencies in appointments are an attempt to appease those employees that are in the better books of senior officials. According to sources, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Education Department has positioned teaching staff on management-level posts, although these officials are not qualified to hold administrative posts. Several stakeholders have raised their voice against the questionable appointments, demanding that authorities stop positioning staff members at its own whim.
Copies of documents with The Express Tribune show that there are 466 management-level posts in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and 501 teaching staff positions. The documents confirmed that 109 posts were vacant in the province.
Advocate Ameer Nawaz Khan, talking to The Express Tribune, says a case has already been filed against this practice at the Peshawar High Court. He adds that more than 70 officials, hired for the management cadre, have been made officers on special duty (OSDs) by the provincial government. The lawyer states that the salaries of many of them remain pending.
Nawaz continues that officers of the management cadre grades of 16,17 and 18 have been made OSDs, saying this is not only detrimental for the current state of education, but will also create problems in future. He alleges it is a well-known fact that the authorities are appointing their blue-eyed employees to positions that are out of their depth.
He says that according to the National Policy of 2009, it was decided that there would be a clear distinction between management and teaching staff cadres. The objective was to improve the education system across the country, as envisioned by the federal cabinet on May 4, 2009. The Centre's instructions may have been as clear as day, but it seems that the provincial government and education department chose to place the wool over their own eyes and violated orders which aimed to improve the system.
Nawaz recalls that the Peshawar High Court has already put a stay against appointing teaching cadre employees as heads of departments in the education sector, yet senior officials are blatantly violating these orders of the superior judiciary. The advocate alleges that certain appointments have even been backdated to ensure that the favoured employees maintained their ill-gotten seniority. "We will submit another writ petition and move the PHC to take note of what is clearly contempt of court."
K-P All Elementary and Secondary Teachers Association President Azizullah Khan also criticised the government's actions, adding that 70 per cent of teaching staff positions are still vacant across the province. "Yet, the government is able to place those junior officials, that should be occupying such vacancies, in managerial roles.
Despite repeated attempts by The Express Tribune to get K-P Elementary and Secondary Education Minister Faisal Tarakai's version of events, he was unavailable to comment on a matter that could potentially jeopardise the future of K-P's children.
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