Passing marks for teaching jobs lowered for under-represented groups

The Sindh cabinet has decided to waive off the condition of achieving 55 per cent passing marks to qualify teacher recruitment tests for under-represented groups, the chief minister announced on Wednesday.

Addressing a news conference after the advisory group’s meeting, CM Syed Murad Ali Shah said the school education & literacy department had announced 23,510 primary school teacher (PST) and 14,039 junior elementary school teacher (JEST) vacancies.

Shah said that 184,209 candidates took the recruitment test for the PST jobs and 164,319 for the JEST jobs, adding that 11,549 qualified the PST test and 1,385 the JEST test. He said that after discussing the situation, the cabinet decided to lower the passing percentage for women and minorities to 50 per cent, and for disabled persons and those belonging to remote areas to 33 per cent.

With the lowering of the passing marks, 618 disabled persons can qualify for JEST jobs and

911 for PST jobs, while 875 people from minority groups can qualify for JEST jobs and 1,699 for PST jobs.

JESTs will be recruited on union committee level, while PSTs will be appointed on Taluka level. Vacancies for the JEST position have also been increased from 14,039 to 17,000.

“In this way the vacancies will be filled to run the schools facing a dearth of teachers,” said Shah, adding that the remaining candidates who have qualified the test after the revised criterion but cannot be appointed due to shortage of vacancies will be placed on the waiting list for a year.