Staff Reporter
Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) has given two out-of-turn extensions in the contracts of over a dozen BPS-19 and BPS-17 employees and is now seeking a third term despite the fact they were originally hired for one year.
Sources told Pakistan Observer here Monday that some influential officers of the Directorate are behind these questionable extensions in stark violation of rules.
Interestingly rules for the posting of AEOs are already in place but even then FDE wants those contractual employees to continue instead of sending these posts to FPSC for normal advertising and hiring process.
Among these contractual employees there are three Area Education Officers (AEOs) of BPS-19 and 11 Montessori teachers of BPS-17. They were hired in October 2016 during the PML-N government for one year on a contractual basis on the recommendation of the then premier’s education adviser, Ali Raza, and the then assistant educational adviser at the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) now working as FDE director Saqib Shahab. They got these employees contracts extended twice. A summary is now moved for the third time extension to the Prime Minister’s office for approval, said the sources.
These employees include AEOs Saira Amjad, Nazmeen Sohail and Sohail Khan and Montessori teachers Sana Rizwan, Hira Khattak, Asma Munawar, Maria Iftikhar, Quratul Ain, Rania Mudassar, Shahida Kiyani, Nazish Rehman, Azra Kanwal, Farah Altaf and Amina Rafiq. Ironically majority of these Montessori teachers are without required diplomat and only two of them Sana Rizwan and Hira Khattak hold a one-year Montessori diploma that is otherwise a must for appointment as the Montessori teacher.
Now, as their contracts are to expire next month the FDE has once again recommended to the education ministry to extend their service term for the third time in a breach of rules.
The sources said that though the three AEOs had formally requested the FDE for service regularization through the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), no rule allowed them the contract extension or absorption in the department as regular employees.
They also said the appointment letters clearly showed that Montessori teachers were hired on a contractual basis for one year.
It may be mentioned here that former FDE director-general and now principal of IMCB-F7/3 Prof Ali Ahmad Kharal had constituted a committee of senior principals in December 2018 to amend rules to adjust the new teaching cadre.
The rules were incorporated after the 2011 up-gradation of trained graduate teachers (BPS-16) of the model school and colleges (former FG schools and higher secondary schools) as SST (BPS-17), sources further said adding the committee submitted the new recruitment rules to the DG’s office but they were turned down by the then FDE director (schools) who reportedly later himself formulated those rules.
