Islamabad:Intended to streamline responsibilities, the education ministry’s revised workload orders for teachers serving in ex-FG schools under the Federal Directorate of Education (FDA) have instead caused widespread confusion.
According to the officials, the ministry recently re-adjusted the four-tier service structure of teachers, creating a need to revise the existing workload distribution for principals, vice-principals, SSTs and ESTs.
However, the new office order meant to standardise duties has raised more questions than answers. Teachers told ‘The News’ that the notification listed just the “Nomenclature of Post” in every column of the document, without defining responsibilities.
A teacher resented the order as poorly drafted, ambiguous and full of mistakes. “Earlier, workload orders were issued by the regulator -- FDE. This is the first time the ministry attempted it, and unfortunately, it has resulted in an utter blunder.”
Another teacher echoed the same frustration, calling the notification the “most unclear” one they had ever seen. “If the purpose was to guide us, it has done the opposite. I read the order multiple times but was unable to extract any meaningful instruction from it. It seems to have been issued in a hurry,” she said.
The educator also said that the mixing of basic details such as the number of teaching periods per day, per week or per month assigned to each teacher had created confusion. A school head said that he was uncertain about how to implement the ministry’s orders.
Despite these shortcomings, the ministry has directed schools to ensure “strict and immediate implementation” with many teachers finding the directives unrealistic given the document’s ambiguity.
Teachers also insisted that the workload orders should have undergone proper review and vetting before being issued, warning that the confusion could disrupt academic planning and school operations if the ministry didn’t issue a corrected or explanatory version.
