Special Education recruitment: ‘Don’t announce results until the court’s verdict’

Judge denies a plea to stay the written test on November 11.

LAHORE: The Punjab Public Service Commission was directed by the Lahore High Court not to announce the result of the qualification test for appointing special education teachers until it rules on a petition filed by visually impaired persons seeking an exemption.

Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed of the High Court issued this order on Friday while hearing a petition that seeks directions to the PPSC to make appointments on the basis of interviews. The petitioners also want the compulsory written test waived.

The judge also summoned some officials of the PPSC on short notice. The commission’s deputy director (legal), Farooq Raja, appeared before the court and told the judge that no quota had been specified for disabled people in the advertisement for the jobs. The judge issued a notice to the Punjab government for a detailed reply by November 24.

The judge denied the petitioners’ plea to stay the written test, which was scheduled for November 11.

The petitioner’s counsel, Advocate Aftab Noshahi, while submitting the petition had said that the PPSC had invited applications for 22 vacant posts of junior special education teachers in the Punjab in July.

Such appointments used to be made on the basis of interviews but this time around the commission had made a written test mandatory to qualify for an interview, he submitted.

The court was told that 25 of the applicants were visually impaired and believed the written test would discriminate against them. The petitioners submitted that visually impaired teachers could be better teachers to visually impaired children since they were qualified in Braille.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 12^th, 2011.