PESHAWAR: As an important development to strengthen Educational Testing and Evaluation Agency (ETEA) and enable it to meet the testing requirements for all public sector recruitment, Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mahmood Khan has agreed in principle to the proposed reform plan for restructuring the agency and streamline all its operational matters. He directed the authorities concerned to complete all the pre-requisites and initiatives well in time so that the proposed plan could be implemented in letter and spirit. The chief minister Khan was chairing a high-level meeting regarding reform initiatives in the ETEA. Special Assistant to Chief Minister for Information and Higher Education Kamran Bangash, Secretary Higher Education, Executive Director ETEA, and other concerned high ups attended the meeting. The forum was informed that in light of the special directives of the chief minister, multiple reform initiatives were underway to strengthen ETEA which would be presented in the upcoming meeting of the board of governors for final approval. It was informed that keeping in view the major functions of the agency, necessary reforms had been proposed for the reorganization of the existing structure of ETEA whereas hiring of IT experts and other staff was also in progress. In order to strengthen the legal framework of the agency, drafts of financial and service regulations have been prepared whereas work on other legal reforms is in the final stages including designing job descriptions for each position, formulating performance appraisal mechanisms, and developing Standard Operating Procedures. The meeting was also informed that the proposed training calendar for capacity building of human resources and a plan to upgrade and procure technical resources would also be presented in the upcoming meeting of the board of governors. For setting up of digital printing press, the tender has been floated for procurement of highly sophisticated digital printing machine and this initiative will enhance the printing capacity from 5000 papers set per day to 50,000 to 60,000 papers set per day. Online requisition system for clients and ticket management system for candidates were also being prepared to ensure efficient service delivery and ease of doing business. It was further informed that implementation of online profile management system of all candidates has been started whereas the preparation of Databank and System Based Paper Generator was in progress adding that computer-based testing system would be launched as a pilot project while the end of September this year. Briefing about the achievements of ETEA, it was informed that more than 7000 candidates were tested for engineering entrance tests and above 300,000 candidates were tested for recruitments against 6,750 vacancies in 39 different departments. Similarly, 52,302 candidates were tested for admissions and promotional tests in various institutions. Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said that ETEA was the single public sector testing agency and needed to be strengthened in accordance with the testing needs of the modern era. He was optimistic that implementation of the proposed reform initiatives would provide an all-time solution to the issues of testing and evaluation in the province and thus the provincial government would not require any private testing agency for the purpose.