DADU: Sindh Minister for Education Syed Sardar Ali Shah has said that his department has launched a training programme for the newlyrecruited junior elementary school teachers (JESTs) in first phase of their skill development.

He was briefing journalists about teachers` training programme during his visit to an institute here on Saturday. He visited various other such institutes in different towns of Sindh during his two-day tour.

The minister was accompanied by several academicians, scholars and officials of his department.

Sardar Shah told the journalists that around 21,200 newlyrecruited primary school teach-ers (PSTs) out of the total 40,176 had already been receiving training at 55 institutes in the province with the aim of ensuring an improved quality of teaching.

He said experts belonging to Sindh Teachers Education Development Authority (STEDA) and the Teachers Training Institution (TTI) were providing training to newlyrecruited teachers for their professional development which would help improve the overall quality and standard of education in Sindh.

Replying to a question, he said that the 21,200 PSTs were divided in four batches and each of the batches was attending 24-day training. Later, the remaining PSTs would follow suit in the next phase, he added.

The minister said that under a pilot project, training the newly-recruited JESTs had also been started in Sukkur, Larkana, Hyderabad, Shaheed Benazirabad, Mirpurkhas and Karachi divisions in this first phase. He said that 1,117 JESTs out of 17,685 had qualified for the initial professionaldevelopment (induction training) programme under the pilot project.Mr Shah said that in line with PPP`s policy, the Sindh government was appointingPSTs and JESTs on a merit basis.

`Those who had failed in the IBA-conducted test for recruitment were provided an opportunity to enhance their knowledge and capacity and reappear in such test. Many of them coming different talukas of Sindh passed the tests,` said Sardar Ali Shah.

`A total of 3,623 candidates from such talukas received the training in two batches for 36 days and passed the tests,` he said.

The minister also pointed out that efforts had been made to reopen the schools that had to be closed in most flood-hit areas of Dadu and Jamshoro districts and their students had to be shifted to tent schools.

`Funds were sought from the provincial government and donors to get the destroyed schoolbuildings repaired or rebuilt in the flood-hit areas, he said, adding that the department was still in need of sufficient funds.

STEDA executive director Haroon Leghari briefed the media about the objectives of the training programme.