Daily Times

KARACHI: The provincial education secretary along with his two blue-eyed additional secretaries have bypassed all the Sindh’s educationists for a three-week special training course aimed at improving performance of the educationists, Daily Times has learnt. While neglecting the criteria, Education Secretary Dr Fazalullah Pechuho along with his two additional secretaries, Rehna Iqbal Baloch and Aalia Shahid, nominated themselves for the educational training which was actually meant for candidates who have excelled in the field of education. Sources said that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had requested the provincial education secretary to nominate at least three senior educationists who have showed extra-ordinary performance in the field of education. However, when it was revealed that the training for a period of three weeks would be held in John F Kennedy, an affiliated college of Harvard University, the education secretary along with his two additional secretaries filled up their own forms and preferred to visit personally despite the fact that all these people have no genuine field experience in education, sources said. According to sources, the USAID has allocated at least Rs 30 million annually for the training programmes for educationists of Sindh. However, not a single educationist has been nominated this year, which is sheer injustice with senior educationists of the province, sources said. “The education secretary and additional secretaries proved themselves as senior educationists at the time of interview before the team of USAID, which is a heinous crime as the senior official of the Sindh government misled the donor agency just for the sake of trip,” sources added.

Sources informed that Education Secretary Dr Fazalullah Pechuho and Additional Secretary Rehna Iqbal Baloch boarded a flight for United States on July 19 this year while Additional Secretary Aalia Shahid fled to US on July 23. Sources said that a wave of anger is prevailing amongst the educationists as they were expecting that some genuine people would take benefit of the training, however, the merit was ignored by the authorities in province.