• Sardar Shah slams Transparency International’s latest report.
• He says report seeks to “malign” Sindh’s education department.
• Report had said education sector was most-corrupt in Sindh.

KARACHI: Minister for Education and Literacy Sindh Syed Sardar Shah Friday rejected Transparency International’s report and called it “biased” as it was prepared based on “assumptions with a set agenda to malign Sindh Education Department”.

Transparency International Pakistan’s (TIP) National Corruption Perception Survey (NCPS) 2022 showed that police continue to occupy the top rung of the corruption ladder in the country followed by tendering and contracting, judiciary, and education.

In Sindh, education remained the most corrupt sector, police was seen as the second-most corrupt, while tendering and contracting was third-most corrupt. 

In a statement, the minister said that the education department has introduced “revolutionary reforms” for the first time and recruited more than 50,000 teachers in schools on “merit” under the third-party selection.

The provincial minister said that the recruitment is being done on merit to meet the shortage of teaching staff in colleges through Sindh Public Service.

“The Department of Education had installed a biometric system to ensure attendance of teaching and non-teaching staff,” the minister noted. He said that in the past schools, had been constructed on a “political basis at unviable sites”.

The minister said that the education department had closed all those unviable schools and was engaged in enhancing the number of teaching staff in active schools.

He said that the department has limited resources as compared to its employees’ strength and a major portion of its budget is being spent on salaries.

“The Sindh government is focusing to upgrade the education system through the use of technology,” he added.