Planning ahead: FDE looks to add 5,000 people to its ranks

Ban on recruitments expected to be lifted by the first week of April, says director of FDE.

ISLAMABAD:

The Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) plans to employ around 5,000 people after a ban on recruitments is lifted by the first week of April.

FDE Director General (retd) Atif Mehmood Kayani told The Express Tribune on Sunday that the directorate has prepared a case to recruit around 5,000 new staff members to cater to the needs of the education department.

Of these, around 2,000 teaching staff and non-teaching staff would be inducted for different schools and colleges in Islamabad. He said that the city educational institutions are in dire need of science and English teachers. The non-teaching staff that the FDE plans to hire includes clerks, administration and account officers, peons, gardeners and librarians.

The FDE has not created any new posts despite establishing educational institutions during last 15 years, which has resulted in shortage of teaching and non-teaching staff, according to Kayani.

The Director General has discretionary power to recruit up to grade 14 and the remaining positions would be sent to Federal Public Service Commission for selection, he added.

Kayani said that the federal government has decided to lift the ban on recruitments by the end of this month or the first week of next month. “Soon after the ban is lifted, we would advertise the vacancies,” Kayani said.

However, sources said that the PPP government has decided to allow recruitments before the general elections to gain political mileage in the next polls. “I fear the recruitments may be on political grounds and the advertisements and test/interviews will be mere a formality,” said an official in the FDE.

PML-N MNA Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry feared that the recruitment process would not be transparent, even though he welcomed fresh inductions. He said he would approach the court if the lower grade jobs are not given to the local people. FDE, he said, is a regional department and the locals have a right over the lower positions.

Fazal said that teachers belonging to elsewhere remain absent from schools and don’t bother taking classes regularly. He said that qualified graduates from the respective union councils should be inducted in the schools in a certain area. He cited the example of Federal Government Primary School Moorian, Chak Shehzad, where only three out of eight teachers teach, resulting in only two out of 55 students passing in the last exam.

Kayani, however, insisted that the recruitments would be purely on merit. “We will ensure transparency at all levels.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19^th, 2012.