Education and health are indeed the two most important
sectors of public services, and every new government is expected by the public to
introduce new reforms and policies into the sectors which may improve and
uplift them. It is therefore that these sectors constitute a major proportion
of the public and political discourses. The PTI-led government in Khyber
Pakhtonkhwa when assumed the power, made lofty claims that it will
revolutionize these sectors. However, despite some fragmented efforts by the government, some of them indeed
commendable, the status quo still remains. The flawed areas of the system need
some consideration.
The government has introduced transparency in the recruitment
system by conducting test through NTS, which is a positive step towards
fair-play, but the policy of merit is defective. A candidate is allowed to
select only five schools, which his test will be considered for. This is indeed
an unjust policy by all canons due the simple reason. If a candidate scores
even less than 40, but supersedes his competitors who in turn follow him in the
descending order of merit, will be considered as dully qualifying candidates
for the vacant posts of the concerned
schools. Whereas on the other hand candidates in the same
vicinity may score higher than 70 but there is only post filled by their topper
with 71 marks, rest of them remained rejected. They are not considered for
other schools wherein even candidates with less than forty marks get selected,
simply because the former had not marked these schools and are out of the competition.
The policy restricts an individual choice to a bare minimum
which is not a fair-play. The same policy was exercised by the government in
the recruitment of Teaching Assistants at the college level in Khyber
pakhtonkhwa which barred many competent candidates from getting selected simply
because there was either no vacant post in their district or the posts were
very limited. Whereas on the other hand their counterparts who had failed the
test in other districts, were given grace marks to make them eligible for
recruitment.
The promotion scheme of the school teachers under time- scale
is yet another flawed area which adversely affects the quality of education in
the province. Teachers get promoted to high scales posts on the simple
criterion of their tenure of service irrespective of their qualification,
academic credentials and capability of
teaching at the next level. The situations have serious consequences on the
quality of education in the province.
Majority of the teachers who have got promoted, are very
senior both in age and tenure of service. They had secured their academic
degrees by appearing multiple times in the examinations as private candidates
and finally luck have favored them to pass the examinations. Their academic
degrees are the ultimate fruits of their relentless exercises on the proverbial
advice of try try again.The teachers,
who got promoted from lower scales to SST, contented and thanked the
policy makers but it is the students who are at the receiving end.
All the promoted teachers, as they are the products of
private system of education and the by- products of the try,try again culture,
are not capable to teach any of the subjects at the higher level except
Islamiyat. Thus a severe competition has ensued for the subject of Islamiyat
among the newly promoted teachers and those have already been recruited for the
purpose. They think that the medium of the subject is Urdu, and every moral and
religious word constitutes its syllabus, which therefore is the only option
they have with them for their professional survival.
A critical glance at the system reveals that there are
already three teachers in the area of Islamic education, viz, Arabic
teacher,Islamyat teacher and Qari. The Job of all of them revolves around the single subject of Islamyiat, they teach the
grammar,contents , phonotics and phonology respectively, which otherwise a single teacher can. The
newly promoted teachers also shared their area of interest and thereby blocked
the way to the otherwise new recruits who could teach subjects like science and
mathematics.
It is high time the policy community of the KP government pay
serious attention to the fault-lines in the system and chalk out viable
strategy to mend these gaps.
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Categories:
Education system in Pakistan
Kp education policies
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