Naimat Khan
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed education department to appoint 6000 Junior Elementary School Teachers (JEST) so that early childhood education system, English Medium and Comprehensive High schools could be started.
This he said on Thursday while presiding over a meeting of school education department meeting here at the CM House. The meeting was attended by Minister Education Jam Mehtab Dahar, Chairman P&D Mohammad Waseem, Principal Secretary to Cm Sohail Rajput, Secretary School Education Iqbal Durani and other concerned officers.
Briefing the chief minister, Secretary School Education Iqbal Durani said that out of under construction 25 English medium school buildings, 15 are ready to start.
The school buildings which have been completed and ready to start are Shaheed Benazirabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Naushehroferoze, Sanghar, Khairpur, Mirpurkhas, Tando Mohammad Khan, Ghotki, Thatta, Badin, Sujawal, Matiari, Tando Allahyar and Jamshoro. The school which would be completed in 2018-19 are Hyderabad, Umerkot, Dadu, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Jacobabad, Tharparkar and Malir while work on three other schools at Shikarpur, Kashmore and Karachi would be started next year.
Mr Durani told the chief minister that SNE of five schools has been approved while the SNE of 10 others was yet to be approved by finance department. On this the chief minister expressed his displeasure and summoned the file from the finance department and approved it during the meeting The chief minister said that he would not tolerate official red-tapism. Everything should be done in time, said.
Murad Ali Shah directed secretary education to invited expression of interest from leading educationists and educational institutions. “I want to run these English medium schools through private management,” he said and added this would help to establish best school in public sector. “The government would bear all the expenditures including tuition fee, text books, exercise material, registration fee and examination fee and even the salaries of the teaching and non-teaching staff the private partner would have to run the management effectively. “I want to start these English Medium Schools by end of April,” he said.
Mr Durani told the chief minister that the formation of recruitment of rules for new 6000 teachers was in process with regulation wing. Under the approved arrangement each English Medium school would have 69 staff members, including 39 teaching staff. The furniture for 15 schools has been purchased. Every school would have a fully equipped science and computer labs, a best library and standby generator.
These schools would be English medium and would be operated on Cambridge system. On this the chief minister said that it was quite difficult for the government to recruit best O Level teachers in rural areas, therefore the task may be given to top educational institutions. The Minister and secretary school education was assigned the task to talk to leading educational institutions for running the management of these English medium schools and then selection would be made through a competitive process.
Replying to a question, the Secretary School education Mr Durani said that out of 25 comprehensive high schools six units would be ready by March 218 while nine others would be ready in December 18. The tendering process of the reaming 10 school is at the advance stage.
The chief minister said that the teachers for early childhood education should be recruited through genuine competitive process but these new teachers must be good at English, science and mathematics. Therefore, question papers for selection of teachers should be made accordingly. “Teachers trainings are most important and I want a comprehensive plan for capacity building of the teaching working in government sector,” he said and concluded.
