KARACHI: The Sindh government has approved a policy to recruit teaching and non-teaching staff in all public sector schools on merit through a third party firm to improve the quality of education across the province, it emerged on Sunday.

This year, officials said, candidates with academic background of science subjects only would be recruited for teaching posts, as an overwhelming majority of schoolteachers in the province belong to arts and humanities group.

`One of the analyses of Sindh Education Management & Information System (SEMIS)indicates that the number of teachers with science qualification is 9.3 per cent,whereas teachers with humanities group are 90.7pc. Therefore, only science background teachers will be recruited [this year],` said the recruitment policy for the current year planned by the education ministry.

`Since most teachers in our schools have the background of arts subjects, they could not properly impart education in science subjects particularly in senior classes, thus, we have decided to recruit teachers having science qualification this year to bridge the gap,` said school education secretary Abdul Aziz Ugaili while speaking to Dawn.

He said his department had previously completed three rounds of merit-based teachers` recruitment over the past 10 years through written tests by third party firms to address the challenges in education like out of school children, teachers` absenteeism, closed schools and to reduce students` dropout r atio.

`More than 18,000 teachers through modern recruitment method have been enrolled in the education system in the past one dec-ade,` claimed Mr Ugaili.

This year, he said, around 6,000 junior elementary schoolteachers (JESTs), and 1,192 early childhood teachers (ECTs) would be hired across Sindh.

He said the most prominent feature of the new recruitment policy was to recruit all the staff, both teaching and non-teaching, through tests conducted by a third party firm. `We have invited tenders from the third party firms and soon a reputed firm would be assigned the task,` he said.

Officials said the education department continued with its efforts to address certain challenges on a top priority basis and got approved from the chief minister the latest recruitment policy of 2017 for teaching and non-teaching staff.

`After a detailed analysis of the current challenges and available data; many pertinent features are included in this policy, said an official.

`The school specific recruitment shall improve not only enrolment, check teachers` absenteeism, ensure availability of teachers but also emphasise on the opening of theviable closed schools,` said the policy document.

According to the document, the new policy recommends taluka and school-specific appointments for ECTs, JESTs and SSTs. It covers cadres of teachers such as drawing teachers, language teachers, PTIs, etc.

Besides, the document said, induction of teachers only with science background was emphasised for mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, computer science and English subjects.

Officials said the new policy addressed the statutory quotas reserved for women, religious minorities and physically challenged persons.

A complaint mechanism has been provided in the policy to redress grievances of candidates and ensure transparency in the recruitment process.

There would be District Placement Committees (DPCs) which would decide posting of recruited teachers on merit. `The policy covers the mechanism to address the tie-cases with clear criteria so as to avoid confusion of lef tover cases,` said an of ficial.