The post of Director General Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) once again turned to musical chair as federal government is considering to giving another extension to incumbent acting DG Ali Ahmed Kharal.
Minister for Education and Professional Training Shafqat Mehmood said that Kharal would continue as DG until appointment of permanent head of the directorate. Kharal’s tenure, as per his current appointment notification, ended on February 18.
An official in the ministry wished not to be named said that most probably a formal notification would be issued in next couple of days after official consent from Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Ali Ahmed Kharal was appointed as FDE director general on additional charge in November last year for three months tenure. Originally, Kharal is the principal of Islamabad Model College for Boys G-6/3.
According to rules formulated by the Education Ministry in March 1990, the FDE DG shall be appointed by promoting people from within the department. These include serving directors or a principal of a degree college with at least 17 years of teaching or administrative experience.
Moreover, SRO-225 states that the DG must have at least 17 years of teaching or administrative service in BS-17 or at least 12 years of service in BS-18 and above or five years in teaching or administrative service in BS-19 in case of direct recruitment. Usually, the FDE appoints a DG on turn basis, alternating between the two categories.
The FDE has the mandate to oversee official affairs of 423 educational institutions. The presence of a head of any institution is considered significant to idyllically handling official business. However, the FDE has no permanent director general after retirement of Dr Shahnaz A Riaz on December 10, 2016.
The post has been lying vacant since then or has been filled on ad-hoc basis.
The last government appointed Hasnat Qureshi against the post on additional charge as he was also the chairman of Private Educational Institutions Regulatory Authority (PEIRA). According to the obtained information, Hasnat Qureshi has no experience in education sector because he is Grade-20 officer of custom group services and has never served in any educational institution before FDE and PEIRA.
Nowadays, the FDE works as attached department of the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training.
Dr Shahnaz A Raiz was the sole DG who was promoted on seniority basis. However, she had been twice removed from the post over non-compliance of alleged illegal orders of her bosses in Capital Administration & Development Division Ministry.
Apart from interval induction of Dr Shahnaz Riaz and acting charges of any FDE official during official leave or official assignments of DGs, over eight DGs have been replaced from 2013 onwards. They included Amir Ashraf Khawaja, Ali Kharal, Moinuddin Wani, Ayesha Farooq, Dr Tariq Masood and now again Kharal on third time.
The officials in the FDE commented that this is a key post and appointment should be made on permanent basis. They said that usually temporary DGs are less bothered to make some policy level changes in the Islamabad Capital Territory educational system which should be the mandatory vision of any head of department.
The officials said that that the government is making plans to enroll all out of school children but that did not review to fill such key slot, adding that without permanent head neither such strategies could be accomplished with tremendous manner and nor the directorate official affairs could run appropriately.
Besides FDE, many other departments, fall under jurisdiction of education ministry, are either on ad-hocism or entirely running headless. National Vocational & Technical Training Commission, the PEIRA, National Education Foundation (NEF) among such institutions. Moreover, the post of secretary general at the Pakistan National Commission for United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)-an education ministry liaison office with UNESCO, has also been vacant for a long time.
Published in Daily Times, February 25th 2019.
