KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to upgrade the status of the primary school teachers, promoting them to higher grades on completing nine and 15 years of service, respectively.
The province has also decided to remove the restriction of having a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) degree for primary teachers to get an upgrade in their basic pay scale (BPS), paving way for 15,000 primary teachers in the province to receive promotions.
The teachers who have completed their 15 years of service would be given a BPS-16 while those who have completed nine-year in service will receive a BPS-15.
In October, a meeting of the provincial cabinet approved the proposal of easing the recruitment policy for the teachers after only a fewer number of candidates were able to clear the test for over 40,000 vacancies.
The meeting was told that only 11,549 candidates passed the test for primary school teachers (PSTs) against the total seats of 32,510 in the province.
Similarly, 14,000 candidates appeared in the test for the junior elementary school teachers (JESTs) for the total seats of 14.039 but only 1,385 candidates could clear it.
The meeting proposed to reduce passing marks from 55 percent to 50 percent for the women, while the education department also proposed to lower the passing criteria for the special candidates from 55 percent to 33 percent.
The passing criteria for the candidates from the minority communities was proposed to be set at 50 percent.
The proposals were approved by the Sindh cabinet.
