Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: While a large number of daily wages employees are running from pillar to post, over 1,000 positions of different cadres are lying vacant in the various educational institutions of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) for the last many years.

According to information available with Daily Times, as many as 1772 positions of various cadres are vacant in the FDE and its institutions for the last many years. The documents reveal that the body has a total of 6728 sanctioned teaching staff of various designations while it lacks 1395 faculty members. The FDE is the body which oversees 422 educational institutions. “How can one run an educational institution if it does not have complete teaching staff,” questioned an official adding that in such circumstances the desirable examination results was a distant dream.

The information suggests that the total sanctioned strength of the principals of Basic Pay Scale (BPS-20) is eight while only three positions of this cadre have been filled while five slots have remained vacant for years.As per rules, there are different kinds of criteria for filling of the posts in the FDE. For example, the posts are being filled directly through the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), promotional quotas, deputation quotas, assistance package quotas, etc.

An official said that the sanctioned principals strength is also not enough for the large number of FDE institutions. Although the creation of new posts is another subject, the authorities should at least fill the vacant posts. Out of a total sanctioned strength of 115 of principals in BPS-19, 97 positions have been filled while the rest 18 have remained vacant. Three more posts of this cadre will be vacant in June after retirement of the principals on these posts. It is alarming for the authorities who are busy in spending millions of the Prime Minister Education Reforms Programme, said an official of the directorate who did not wish to be named.

Similarly, the number of vice principals should be 270 as per sanctioned criteria while it stands at 219 and there is a shortage of 51 positions in this cadre.

Besides these cadres of teachers some other positions of faculty members are also lying vacant. As per documents, they are STT, PTI,DM, Reins MTT, Reins TUGT, EST and others.

It is not just the shortage of faculty members in its institutions, the FDE has also faces a severe crisis of non-teaching staff to run the official business. Around 377 non-teaching cadres slots are laying vacant within the directorate and its jurisdiction schools/colleges. The total sanctioned strength of non-teaching staffers of the FDE, is 2618 while it has filled only 2241 positions and the rest 377 slots are vacant. These vacant positions of non-teaching carders include almost all designations from librarian (BPS-16) to sanitary worker (01).

A well informed source in the FDE told this scribe that in 2009, the then government dared to fill some non-gazetted positions of both teaching and non-teaching sections while afterwards not even a single position had been filled.

Moreover, about 1,250 deputy headmasters (BPS-16) have been re-designated and upgraded as SSTs with a conversion of their basic pay scale to 17. Interestingly, so far the new rules for such new designated posts have not been approved. A draft in this regard is pending with the Capital Administration and Development Division (CA&DD).

There are around 2050 daily wages employees of the FDE. They are serving with the FDE for over a decade. They have used all legal means to press the authorities to be a part of the permanent staff of the directorate.

They staged many strikes and demonstrations in this regard. The standing committees and even the Supreme Court of Pakistan gave verdicts in favour of these daily wages employees but still in vain. An official suggested the authorities may consider the services of daily wagers to resolve the issue of vacant slots. A senior official in the FDE who claimed anonymity admitted about the huge number of vacant slots.

However, he claimed that gazetted staff was being hired through the FPSC and the directorate had no shortage of gazetted positions.