Ali Gul Leghari-Johi
Sindh Education and Literacy Department, Government of Sindh had announced some vacancies of Junior Elementary School Teachers (JEST) and Primary School Teachers (PST) in March 2021 through third party SIBA testing service. Candidates in thousands applied for the jobs, appeared in the tests and some of them qualified the tests. Currently, after continuous changes in recruitment policy, the process of distributing offer orders among the successful candidates is in progress throughout the province. It has been seen that almost whole youth of Sindh is striving for getting JEST or PST job. At first cut off ratio of 60, after continuous changes, finally all candidates securing 40 plus marks have been decleared as qualified candidates. If there is no vacant post, the candidates will be kept on waiting until new posts are available. As per government announcements, this result will be valid for two years. Through this writeup up, I want to draw the attention of our Sindhi youth regarding government jobs. First of all, it should never be assumed that in Sindh, there are only teaching Government jobs. There are many other Government departments in which different jobs are announced on different occasions. Getting only JEST or PST job never means you got everything in your life. It is also assumed that Government teachers have higher salaries and working hours are only half day everyday. This is true that some Government teachers are getting more than one and half lac salaries but it should also be noted that these are the most senior teachers who have been working for more than 20 to 25 years. Many higher positions of BPS 16, and above are announced in FPSC in first week of every month. SPSC in Sindh also announces such positions on different occasions. Those candidates who have made up their minds only to become a good teacher may avail the opportunity of teaching jobs. This is one of our weaknesses that we always wait for the vacancies, particularly for teaching jobs, start preparing and join the race in crowd. We never make any better plan for our future due to the lack of career counseling. We only want government job, no matter to which department it belongs or even what scale of position is it. By doing so, many of us fail to show our inner skills and talents which we possess but we are unknown to it or we never want to utilise it anywhere. If a candidate, who is working in a private institute and he is getting salary of more than 60 thousands, if he qualifies a PST job and starts working there, his initial salary will hardly be 30 thousand. It will take at least 10 years to level to the salary of private institute which was formerly receiving. But if he continues to work in the private institute, his salary may increase from 60 thousands to one lac and he will also have chances of getting promotions and other benefits which our government departments lack. Similarly, after working 15 to 20 years as PST or JST, the salary may increase from 30 thousand to one lac or more, but if you work in a private institute for more than 15 years, your annual income will be equal to the total sum of money that you will receive during your retirement in government job. Here a question rises that in private institutions, job security is one of the major issues, particularly in NGOs or INGOs, most of the projects are for short term. But here your experience of working with well reputed organizations, your skills and talent will never let you sit jobless at home. Besides, there are many private or semi-Government organizations who are working on long term projects in collaboration with Government. In the end, I would suggest our youth to enhance their broad thinking and long term planning for their future. Never depend on Government jobs because their policies are being changed day by day. Our country is dependent on IMF and some rumours which may be true are being spread that IMF has issued some strict instruction to stop issuing pension to retired employees and it will be implemented soon in near future. So, utilise your inner extraordinary skills and talent, prepare yourself for commissioned level jobs such as CSS, PCS, or if you get a desired job in any private or Semi-Government institute, work harder to promote yourself on key positions with your abilities.