Testing times for Chitrali jobseekers
CHITRAL, Nov 26: Hundreds of students from Chitral are facing hardship and financial losses while travelling to Peshawar and back to appear in the tests scheduled by the elementary education department through the National Testing System (NTS).
The agonies of the youth multiply in the winter when the Lowari Pass closes due to the snowfall and cost of accommodation in Peshawar goes up further due to the rush.
Chitral is considered one of the high literacy rate areas in Pakistan and open to gender equal opportunities for employability. For the vacant posts advertised by the KPK elementary education department, applicants from Chitral get through the process of online form submission and other NTS requirements. Most of the applicants who are graduates and have no job even to bear their travel expenses have to travel to Peshawar to appear in the NTS screening tests. It takes four days precious time as well.
One of my friends had taken two candidates to Peshawar for the test. After returning to Chitral, he told me that the problems he faced were multiple but to limit the expenses from Chitral to Peshawar and back they had to spend 13,000 only for travel, accommodation and food.
“I met with another candidate teaching in a private school who was upset to spend the budget of the whole year for this test because of the high cost of transport, hotels etc. It is an eye opener for the representatives of Chitral that about 1,000 of jobless graduates have approximately spent 4000 rupees each besides facing other issues. It may also be noted that many potential candidates might haven’t been able to appear in these tests due to financial constraints.
There are examination centers in almost all districts of KPK for conducting tests and round about 200 candidates reportedly are said to be a requirement for opening an examination centre in a district. The weather conditions particularly in the winter and distance from Chitral to Peshawar make the case of Chitral stronger for the opening of a test centre in Chitral. It is easier to designate few examiners for Chitral rather than asking thousands of the youths to travel to Peshawar.
The writer is a teacher and freelance journalist based in Chitral.]]>
Mr Alhaj has pointed out a very concerned issue..PTI government has assigned the testing in all Govt departments to NTS, so large number of candidates has to travel to Peshawar for test/interviews. to arrange a testing facility in Chitral is the need of the day.. we made request to NTS Authorities to establish a testing center in Chitral and Govt(especially district Govt) must assist NTS in this.
Mr Shoaib Jadoon, DC Chitral’S effort in this regard is appreciable too.
That’s very true by the writer. I met two candidates who travelled for the test and explained the same situation that the writer has mentioned. It is of course a real prevailing problem for Chitralis for which appropriate solution is needed to be sorted out.