Candidates for ‘Educators’ suffer

Rawalpindi
For Punjab Education Department there still persist eighteenth century practices, as the officials of this department yet to learn about the uses of information technology; it was due to this kind of mentality in the department that thousands of candidates for ‘Educators’ immensely suffered due to non-provision and easy access to information. Candidate were supposed to clear not only the prescribed educational standards but also to get through the toughest physical tasks assigned to them.
According to details, Punjab government had recently announced more than 1,800 vacancies of educators for Rawalpindi division for which over 75,000 applicants applied. Before application procedure, the candidates were to appear for the NTS test where all candidates submitted their cell phone numbers and email addresses. NTS being a private institution conveyed to the students through SMS about the date and centre for examination but when the matter came before the Punjab Education Department, the candidates were left groping in the dark. Successful candidates in NTS test were to submit printed forms and credentials before the Education Department that has set up its office for this particular purpose at Govt Dannie’s High School. Information regarding the next phase and deadline for submission of papers was nowhere displayed on any website and candidates were even not informed through emails or SMS despite the fact that candidate on their forms had duly mentioned the same. The Education Department by pasting one A-4 size notification at its centre, thought that they have done away with their responsibility and conveyed all the candidates about the information they required and this way they reduced hundreds of students from applying on time for the recruitments. Then came the day when candidates had to submit their papers. This could have been done more efficiently if the education department may had call for online applications but the department preferred to exhaust the candidates, who are coming from far off areas of Rawalpindi divisions, stood in a kilometre long queues for submission of their papers.
Then came the day when candidates had to see their names in the merit list where names of those candidates were printed who had to appear before an interview panel. The Education Department once again held a ‘healthy competition’ by pasting printed A-4 size papers on black boards with names of students written on them in a way that one could only see his/her name from a distance of a single foot. The blackboards were placed out at Dannie’s High School over an open sewerage line and giving candidates another physical task to clear. This way the Education Department not only verified the eyesight of the candidates but their physical strength to get on to the board in a completely crumbled manner.
The Education Department also promoted ‘gender equality’ this way as both men and women were on the same page and same blackboard. For the Education Department this also eased out their troubles as number of candidates failed to see their names and thus added into the comforts of this department officials. Then came the day when interviews were to be conducted. The ‘brave warriors’ (candidates) facing all odds gathered at the same venue for interviews and there were no such kind of things. The candidates were directed to locate their files that they had submitted for this purpose. Some lucky candidates managed to find these while the ordinary could not find and it was told that their files were lost. Number of students were neither on the list of successful candidate nor on the list of rejected candidates. After this, a provisional list of candidates was pasted in a similar manner and then a final list had to be pasted on March 5 and March 11 but the candidates came to know that a stay has been granted by a local court in this regard. Surely this is to test the mental toughness of the candidates that how they would react to some shocking news.
Executive District Officer-Education EDO-E Qazi Zahoorul Haq while responding to all this said that the online system could have had eased out the work load for Education Department but it was not in policy provision. Regarding uploading of lists online EDO-E said that they did it accordingly at the website of Rawalpindi District Government. Contrary to the claims of EDO-E, the list of candidate was uploaded days after it was put on the minutely scripted papers at Dannie’s High School.
Now EDO-E says that the list of BPS-16 candidates will be displayed on March 14, of BPS-14 on March 16 and of BPS-09 on March 22.