.. by Prof Rahmat Karim Baig
The PTI had come to power from a major support of the young men of our present generation who had been lured into the net for providing millions of jobs and NTS- a doubtful private Organ- had been called to conduct tests across the province but most of the posts are , rumoured to be sold, rejecting the rightful candidates. There is an unbelievable number of jobless youth in the province and the tests taken for the PST post in the beginning of this year became controversial due to leakage of question papers in some districts and the govt og KPK has been sitting silently from that date to date. Why??? Is the Chief Minister knows nothing about that scandal? Why has he neglected that dirty spot his his administration. Is he going to ignore the vision of the Prime Minister? Does he dare to do such a thing? I hereby APPEAL to the prime Minister to pay attention to this issue in the light of his election campaign when he repeatedly announced to give 10 million Nokarian to the jobless graduates and post graduates. The number of job seekers is sky rocketing and active work from the department concerned is urgently needed. It may create a great mess for the authorities.
There was a time in the 70s when untrained BA /BSc. Were appointed against B.ED. ( now called SST) posts and were then given chance to go the College of Education and get B.ED degree and come back to their posts and continue their service. It was all done on merit basis. Batch wise placements were made and very few complaints were reported. Under this policy many untrained graduates came to Chitral from down districts especially Malakand division, did their duty and then were transferred as local graduates were not available for all the SST posts in Chitral especially in the distant parts of the district. Nepotism was as common as it is now. Here a story related to this discussion is worth quoting as I my self was an eyewitness to this short incidence.
We had such a fresh graduate teacher sent against a B.ED post and he was in Chitral for a couple of months and during an informal talk he told his story that he , after taking the BA exam. went to Karachi to seek some job and was employed in a construction project. There he worked as a unskilled laborer and lived with his friends from Swat. The head of the construction company was a foreigner and after three months his result was announced by the University and he had passed the BA exam. In 2nd division. But he continued his labour. The news of his graduation however spread and some one told the foreigner about his education. The man called him to his office and asked about the truth of the news. He told him that it was true. The foreigner then told him that he, under the rules, was not allowed to keep a BA graduate as a laborer and therefore dismissed him from the project and thus as a result of passing BA he lost his job but there was no other position to keep him so he became jobless once again and compelled to return to Swat and apply for the job of a teacher and so he got it and was sent to Chitral.
The KPK government is bound to advertise vacancies of teachers, make the process speedy and recruit teachers on merit basis and appoint them against vacant posts. The mere slogan of compiling bundle of lies would not add any credit but ash to the poor image of the provincial government. .. Prof R.K Baig, Chitral 01 Oct 2021