KARACHI: Education and Literacy Minister Jam Mahtab Hussain Dahar said on Wednesday that electricity loadshedding is a big issue in schools; therefore, it has been decided in principle that solar system’s will be installed in educational institutions and the stakeholders are in process of preparing a feasibility report to materialize this initiative. “The education department appointed 8200 teachers in 2008 year, 9000 teachers in 2010 year and 15605 in 2012 through tests by Sindh University Jamshoro, Institute of Business Administration Sukkur and National Testing Services respectively. This recruitment was made to ensure placement of teachers in each school of the province. The primary teachers were appointed at union council level, junior school teachers at taluka level and higher secondary teachers at district level with transparency,” he stated in an article issued to media today. The education minister said that through a comprehensive policy and dedication, 2027 closed schools had been re-opened from December 2016 to April 2017 and re-opening of remaining schools is under way with transparency. He said: “The excellence of education system depends on the competency of teachers who are the backbone of the system. Since 2008, School Education Department Sindh, have completed merit and need-based three rounds of recruitment (2008, 2010 and 2012). The recruitment was made by involving reputable private firms hired through open bidding system. The purpose of this huge recruitment was to address the challenges such as control on drop out ratio, attract out-of-school-children (OOSC), shortage of teachers and re-opening of closed schools.” “The Chief Minister has pleased to agree to recruit 6000 Junior Elementary School Teachers (JEST) BPS-14 on taluka/ town basis and primary school teachers BPS-09 on Union Council basis (both to be appointed against specific school) through written test to be conducted by a well reputed third party. This induction of merit-based teachers will help to maintain standardize student teacher ratio. In this regard, a summary for CM is under process and hopefully recruitment will be made shortly,” Dahar said. He said that teaching of Sindhi language in private schools had been a burning issue and to solve the matter, all private schools have been bound to teach Sindhi and Quran Nazra/ Islamiat and ethics (on need basis). He said that it was also a great achievement of Sindh Education Department that Sindh Curriculum Authority had been formed to run the affairs smoothly and Sindh was the first province that had made its own syllabus of social studies from class VI to VIII. The minister said that another milestone that with the coordination of JICA ,25 Primary Girls Schools have been upgraded into Elementary Schools in rural areas of Sindh. A total of 58 schools will be upgraded in 12 districts. Payment of fees in public sector educational haf been a problem for poor parents and to solve this issue. Dahar said: “Education & Literacy Department Government of Sindh has issued a notification declaring therein that, in future all fees from class IX to XII relating to Admission, Enrollment and Examination will be borne by the department herself. The purpose of initiative is to support poor parents and enhance enrollment as well as award 5 lacs students will get benefits.” “There are number of schools which have dangerous buildings and lacking necessary facilities such as bathrooms, boundary walls, drinking water and electricity which require urgent repair and maintenance. To address this issue, a meeting under the chairmanship of honorable Chief Minister, Sindh was held in CMH, in which an amount of rupees 1.5 billion was approved to be used for construction/ maintenance of 50 units per districts on need basis and this assignment were handed over to Education works to complete within three months times.” “Free distribution of text books is another big achievement of Sindh Education Department. This year over 29 million free text books have been distributed free of cost to government schools. It costs almost Rs 1.6 billion for publishing, supply and transportation,” he said. “Pending cases of endowment scholarship of year 2015 & 2016 have been successfully got approved from Board of Governors and cheques will be disbursed to the concerned student very soon.A MoU has been signed between Sindh Education Department and A.Q.Khan Schooling System, Islamabad that will enable 200 students from the SEF schools to get A MoU has been signed between Sindh Education Department and A.Q.Khan Schooling System, Islamabad that will enable 200 students from the SEF schools to get quality education in Islamabad for seven years. Sindh education department will pay Rs15000 quarterly against their tuition fee and will also bear expenditure of lodging and boarding as well,” the education minister concluded.