When in November 2014 the KP government handed over the process of recruitment on the posts of SSTs in the province to the National Testing Service (NTS) to ensure merit, everyone took a sigh of relief.
The NTS completed the task faithfully and in February 2015 submitted the merit list to the education department for the appointment of the teachers. According to the first advertisement placed in newspapers, a candidate could apply for a maximum of five schools and based on that priority their merit list was to be prepared.
However, when the NTS prepared the lists on that basis and like other districts sent it to the education department of Chitral for further process, the officials in the valley issued the final list on March 9 and gave the candidates two days for correction. However, two weeks later it emerged that the officials in Chitral have played with the merit list and totally disfigured it. Now they are unable to get it corrected.
More importantly, instead of following the criterion of the five-school priority, the officials reportedly started preparing a list containing the names of their relatives and near and dear ones. As pressure from the candidates started pouring in, the officials could not handle the matter and now even after the passage of over two weeks there is no sign the merit list would be issued anytime soon. This was mainly because the education department Chitral did not follow the five-school criterion otherwise the merit list could have been prepared in a day.
This has increased the suspicion among the candidates that the staff at the education department is trying to accommodate their favourites in complete violation of the merit list prepared by the NTS.
I request the higher up of the provincial government to take notice of the matter so that merit can be ensured in the appointment of the teachers.
Issa Khan]]>
