Qaim orders investigation into fake jobs’ racket in education department

Karachi
The Sindh chief minister has ordered an inquiry into bogus and fake recruitments in the education department on district level.
Qaim Ali Shah said, “This would be easy to trace out if the payrolls made by accountant general office are checked.”
He told the secretary finance to hold a meeting with AG Sindh and provide the copies of payroll to the secretary education for an inquiry within three days and a report be submitted to him.
The chief minister was presiding over a meeting of education department to review ongoing projects on Monday.
During the presentation, Qaim pointed out that he had reports that some of the education department officers on district level were involved in fake and bogus recruitments to which both Education Minister Nisar Khuhro and Secretary Fazal Pechuho agreed.
Pechuho said that some officials of the education department were involved in this racket, adding “They create fake IDs to make bogus appointments. Some of these cases have been unearthed with solid evidences.”
Qaim said since he has taken over as chief minister from June 2013 he had imposed ban on recruitment, adding the ban was lifted about six months ago but no appointments have been made so far. “The surplus staff or the bogus appointments would be very easy to trace out if we compare payrolls of 2013 with 2014. Action must be taken against those involved in this racket, which should not be less than dismissal from service,” Qaim directed.
In his presentation, Khuhro briefed the meeting about various development projects being carried out by the education department.
About Annual Development Programme schemes, he said out of Rs10.7 billion allocation the finance department has released Rs3.6 billion. “We have taken up 14 major schemes of which 11 would be completed by the end of the financial year.“
Giving details of $155 million USAID programme, minister said $81 million was allocated for construction of 120 schools damaged by 2010 floods and $74 million for community mobiilisation programme, Sindh Reading Programme and Capacity Development of Education Department Programme.
Khuhro mentioned that that out of 120 schools 38 were under construction in Khairpur, Sukkur and Larkana.
He said the CIDA project meant to strengthen teacher training institutes has almost been completed.
Khuhro said that with the Japanese assistance 58 schools were being up-graded from primary Girls Schools to Elementary Schools in 12 districts.
Talking about EU Technical Assistance, he said of the total grant amounting 30 million euros for curriculum development the first tranche of 10 million was likely to be transferred to Sindh government by April 2015.
Among others, Sindh Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah and secretary of the department were also present at the meeting.

Schools facilities
The Sindh Education Department is running a three-year programme for provision of missing facilities in educational institutions under which some 10,000 schools would benefit.
Sindh Senior Minister for Education Nisar Khuhro stated this on Monday, while responding to queries of the concerned lawmakers during question hour at the provincial assembly.
He said that government’s educational institutions were facing various issues like disconnection of electric supply and the ministry was trying its best t to resolve these problems.
Khuhro informed the house that some 43,000 government primary schools had been functioning, which accounted for 90 percent of government-run educational institutions in the province while the rest were elementary, secondary, higher secondary schools and colleges.
He said that there were 131 government colleges in Karachi alone out of total 269 in the province while there were only 20 other colleges in the province and stressed the need for establishing more institutions in the province.
Khuhro said after the 18th Amendment and devolution of education subject to the provinces, the Sindh’s department had started revision of school education curriculum.
“The Sindh Textbook Board has made revised textbooks for Class I to IV during the academic year 2013-14. Revision of textbooks from Class-V to Class-VIII had also been made during the academic year 2014-15. The revision of textbooks is an ongoing process.”
He mentioned that the Sindh School Education Standards and Curriculum Act-2014 has been enacted in the province to provide maintenance of school education standards and supervision of curriculum, textbooks, and assessment process for improving quality of education.
In addition, he went on, the Education and Literacy Department has notified the Sindh Curriculum Implementation Framework-2014 whose objective is to outline implementation strategies with regard to its dissemination, learning material development, teacher education, assessment techniques, and feedback mechanism.
The education minister said the authorities had also introduced a number of steps and policies for curbing use of unfair means in examinations.