Sindh cabinet approves teachers’ recruitment, wheat procurement

Keeping in view the shortage of teaching staff in Sindh, the provincial cabinet on Thursday approved the proposal of recruitment of around 37,000 teachers during the next three years.

The cabinet, after thorough discussions and deliberations, also decided to fix the wheat procurement target for the season 2020-21 at 1.4 million metric tonnes (MMT) at the rate of Rs2,000 per 40 kilogrammes.

The cabinet meeting was presided by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah at the CM House. It was attended by provincial ministers, advisers, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah and provincial secretaries.

Recruitment policy

A sub-committee had earlier been tasked with reviewing the recruitment policy 2021 for teaching and non-teaching staff in the education department.

The committee submitted its recommendations, according to which the minimum prescribed academic qualification for primary schoolteachers (PST) should be graduation in the second division.

It was recommended that the post of PST (BS-09) may be upgraded to BS-14 for initial recruitment in view of upgrading of the academic qualification criteria from intermediate to graduation.

Another recommendation was to ensure that the PST remained in primary schools throughout their service for which a service structure should be created for the career progression of PSTs, instead of allowing them promotions to other cadres of schoolteachers. It was recommended that the post of senior primary schoolteacher (BS-16) and post of head/chief primary schoolteacher (BS-17) could be created for promotions of the PSTs.

It was said that the recruitment rules for other teaching cadres such as music teacher, Sindhi language teacher), oriental teacher, etc. may be revised keeping in view the availability of the specialised qualification holders in the market.

The cabinet discussed the recommendations and approved them in principle with the direction to the education department to prepare a detailed presentation as to how the recommendations would be implemented and what would be its financial impact.

The cabinet was told that around 37,000 positions of teachers of different cadres were vacant in the school education department, after which it allowed the education department to start the recruitment process through the Sukkur Institute of Business Administration in three phases over the course of the next three years.

Wheat crop

The food department told the cabinet that currently 800,000 tons of wheat was available with the department and it had procured 1.236 MMT from the production of the crop season 2019-20 and 117,000 tons of imported wheat from the federal government.

The department assured the cabinet that the wheat stock available with it was sufficient till the harvest of the new crop in the 2020-21 season and requested the cabinet to decide the procurement target.

The cabinet discussed the matter and decided that the support price would be Rs2,000 as was decided earlier and 1.4 MMT wheat would be procured in the next procurement season starting next month.

The meeting also rejected the allegation of the federal government that the Sindh government had hoarded wheat which resulted in the price hike of the essential food commodity.

The cabinet members termed the allegation baseless and unreasonable, and recalled the admission of Federal Minister Fakhar Imam on the floor of the National Assembly that 6.6 MMT of wheat had been disappeared from Punjab.

Remissions

Approving the request of a prison inmate, Junaid Rehman Ansari, undergoing life imprisonment, the cabinet granted him remission.

The home department told the cabinet that Ansari was undergoing life imprisonment, which turned out to be 25-years-long sentence, and he had so far served his sentence up to 16 years, four months, and 16 days.

He had also earned other remissions of five years, 11 months and 25 days and his unexpired portion of sentence came to two years, seven months and nine days. The remission on the basis of the educational qualification of the prisoner had been worked out to be of two years, seven months and nine days, if the cabinet approved it.

The cabinet approved the education remission as well as the remission for the remaining period. The cabinet directed the home department to work out details of such other prisoners who could be given similar remissions. The cabinet also called the details of the prisoners who had completed their sentence but were still languishing in jails because of non-payment of surety bonds.