Education is the foundation of any nation’s progress, and the foundation of education is the teacher. Millions of children are sitting in schools across Sindh, but there are no teachers to teach them. To fill this gap, when the Government of Sindh announced recruitment for General Science Teachers, millions of youth from every district of Sindh took a breath of hope.
Who are these youth?
They are not ordinary youth. They are graduates and masters from universities across Sindh. Some did engineering, some did B.Ed, some held MA degrees but had no job. Some prepared for tests for 5 years straight, and in those 5 years no job came. They never gave up till the very end. And when the results came, they proved they are capable by scoring 50+ marks.
Despite the burden of parents’ expectations, the pressure of inflation, and the disappointment of unemployment, they kept working hard to uphold those hopes. After graduating from university, parents’ first question is always: “Now when will you get a job?” The answer is silence, and tears in the eyes. Because these youth feel the toil of their parents. They work hard to turn their parents’ dreams into reality, so that no one can taunt their parents saying, “Your son studied and just sits at home. It would have been better to put him to labor.” Even a 15,000 PKR job in private schools is not available with dignity.
That’s why these youth saw one dream: the dream of becoming a government teacher. Dreaming was easy, but fulfilling it requires blood and sweat. For the last 3 years these youth have been sitting with books in libraries, coaching centers, and at home from morning till evening. Some took loans to buy books. Some watched YouTube lectures on mobile data. Math formulas, science laws, English grammar, Sindhi literature they memorized it all.
The “Syllabus Bomb” in the Last Week and the Pedagogy Challenge
After the test date was announced, candidates started their final revision. Everyone’s focus was on the subject, because in previous recruitments questions also came from the subject. But just one week before the test, when IBA Sukkur uploaded the final syllabus on its portal, everyone was shocked. Out of 100 marks, 20 questions were directly from “Pedagogy.”
Now what is Pedagogy? It’s the principles of becoming a teacher. How to teach children, how to manage a class, how to design a curriculum. This is a separate subject.
The question is: how can a youth who has been studying Physics, Chemistry, and Math for 2 years learn Pedagogy theories, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories in 7 days?
This was not justice. This was injustice to those who had mastered their subject.
Even then, these youth did not give up. They went to the test hall and solved the paper with all their ability. 1,200 GST candidates got appointed, while 8,680 seats were kept vacant — and still candidates with 50+ marks remain unemployed.
The Education Minister, Honorable Sardar Ali Shah, himself admitted this. In a press conference he said, “50 marks is a good score. When PST is pass at 30-40 marks, Teaching License at 50 marks, then why is GST pass at 55? And why are there different policies within the same department?
Minister Sardar Shah should stand by his statement and understand the pain of the unemployed. Candidates with 50+ marks from all over Sindh are protesting, yet our Sindh Government remains silent.
We appeal to Education Minister Sardar Shah: Pass the GST candidates at 50+ marks and end the hopelessness among the youth.
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