KARACHI: Sindh Education Minister Syed Sardar Ali Shah said on Tuesday that the education department had completed a large recruitment drive by hiring over 93,000 teachers, including 31,075 women, to ensure that no functional school remains closed due to a shortage of teachers.

Spokesperson for the Sindh education department Atif Vighio explained that the current phase of recruitment beganafter tests were conducted through the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) Sukkur in September 2021.

`The process of issuing offer lettersto successfulcandidates was then initiated, with appointments in the first phase made against existing vacancies. Subsequently, until Feb 28, 2025, the recruitment process continued through a waiting list to fill positions that became vacant due to retirements or deaths. This phase was later extended to June 30, 2025, and concluded yester-day,` he told Dawn.

In a statement, Minister Shah said that appointment letters hadbeenissued to93,118 teachers, including 65,147 primary school teachers (PSTs) and 27,701 junior elementary school teachers (JESTs), who have all been hired purely on merit through third-party testing.

`The recruitment of 31,075 women teachers has strengthened the Sindh government`s initiatives for women`s empowerment, while 1,330 differently abled persons and 2,100 minority candidates were alsoappointed as teachers,` he added.

The education minister said that the newly appointed teachers had become part of 41,129 government schools across the province, and the recruitment had activated over 5,000 previously non-functional schools.

`With the trust of [PPP] chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, we have now achieved the goal of providing capable and qualified teachers in Sindh`s schools,` he added.

He stated that the next phase after recruitment would be pro-fessional training for teachers to further improve the quality of education and expressed hope that the teachers joining the school education department would understand the responsibilities of this noble profession and perform their duties with honesty.

He said that in March 2021, job advertisements were issued under a third-party process through IBA Sukkur, ensuring merit and transparency, with tests conducted in September 2021. Mr Shah provided further division-wise details of the recruited teachers: Karachi Division: 7,444 PSTs and 5,643 JESTs; Hyderabad Division: 17,075 PSTs and 6,904 JESTs; Sukkur Division: 11,619 PSTs and 4,183 JESTs; Larkana Division: 11,145 PSTs and 4,034 JESTs; Mirpurkhas Division: 7,513 PSTs and 2,916 JESTs; Shaheed Benazirabad Division: 10,261 PSTs and 4,020 JESTs.

`After these recruitments, the student-teacher ratio in Sindh has improved to 34.59, which will be further enhancedin the next recruitment phase,` he added.

`Due to transparent and merit-based processes, youth from underprivileged backgrounds have secured respectable employment, with four daughters from a single family successfully passing the test and setting an example,` he further shared.

He also said that the rehabilitation of schools affected by rains and floods in the province was ongoing and acknowledged that some teachers were facing challenges regarding facilities in certain areas, which the department was striving to resolve.