Many lobbying to claim top FDE slot

Islamabad : After seeing their bids to claim the top Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) post fall through during the last PML-N-led political dispensation, many hopefuls are now lobbying hard to get their cases struck a chord with those who matter in the current interim government.

Noted among those being approached by FDE directors and college principals is Azam Khan, state minister for the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), which has the administrative control of the directorate.

Hasnat Qureshi, a BPS-20 bureaucrat of the Pakistan Audit and Accounts Service group, has been acting as a stand-in for the permanent FDE director general (BPS-20) for more than a year due to the CADD’s policy of adhocism towards public sector education in Islamabad. The Establishment Division had issued a notification tasking him with managing the affairs of the BPS-20 office in April 2017 for a period of three months, which was later extended for three more months ending in October 2017.

Though his term in office wasn’t renewed afterward, Hasnat Qureshi has been working in that position since then. Instead of filling top vacancy on permanent basis, the CADD has long been posting its one officer after another or outsiders as the interim FDE chief. Dr Shahnaz A Riaz was the last permanent FDE director general, who had retired in December 2016 on attaining the age of superannuation. Things are even worse at the regulator for Islamabad’s private schools, PEIRA, which hasn’t seen a permanent chief since the unceremonious exit of Atif Mehmood Kayani in June 2013 after him coming in for strong criticism from the Supreme Court over a mere 14 years education, including a bachelor’s degree with very low grades.

The PEIRA chairman’s office, too, has been held by Hasnat Qureshi since February 2017. The relevant officials told ‘The News’ that the CADD was bound by rules to choose one or more from among the senior FDE officials or college principals (BPS-19) for promotion before sending their names to the prime minister’s office for choosing one for notification as the permanent chief of the directorate. They said under the FDE recruitment rules, the DG’s was purely a ‘promotion post’ for administrative cadre and if there’s no one from the cadre eligible enough for appointment, the senior most from among the principals of federal government schools and colleges would be asked to temporarily hold the office until a permanent appointment was made.

According to them, FDE estate management director Tanweer Ahmad (BPS-19) and finance director Zulfiqar Ali Rao (BPS-19) eye the DG post claiming to be the senior most among the directorate officials. However, junior yet well-connected administration director Dr Tariq Masood has the potential to spring a surprise. Also in the running are BPS-19 college principals, including Professor Atta Muhammad Marwat of the Islamabad Model Postgraduate College of Commerce, H-8/4, Professor Rafiq Sandhelvi of the G-6/3 ICB, Professor Muhammad Ali Siddiqui of the H-8 Islamabad Model Postgraduate College, and Professor Izharul Hassan Bokhari of the F-10/4 IMCB. Having their eyes on the BPS-20 post for quite some time, many of these hopefuls have intensified their bids to ‘claim right’ by contacting those at the helm in the interim administrative dispensation, including CADD minister Azam Khan and bosses at the Prime Minister's Office.

Some have met the minister, while others are trying to make an appointment with him. One of them is understood to have formally put in a request to the CADD secretary for appointment as the permanent FDE chief claiming to be the most eligible from among aspirants for the office. The officials said many hopefuls had undergone interviews at the CADD for the BPS-20 post in the last five years but the bureaucratic red tape on some occasions and political interference on the others threw a spanner in the works and thus, causing top appointments to the directorate on adhoc basis.

The teachers demanded the filling of the FDE DG post on merit. A leader of the Federal Government College Teachers Association claimed that most of the top FDE appointments in the past were politically-motivated with ‘incompetent and unqualified’ outsiders being the beneficiaries.

“Seniority, merit and competence should be the basis for the permanent filling of the post and not someone’s personal or political favouritism,” he said. He feared that violation of the laid-down rules in that respect would cause litigation and thus, further harming the cause of education in the region. A senior CADD official said the ministry had already barred officials of all attached departments from visiting its premises and the PM Office for official or personal meetings without getting the written permission of their top bosses.