ISLAMABAD: Teachers working under the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) Sunday expressed their gratitude to the authorities for improving the performance appraisal system of teachers which was direly needed.
According to the official source, FDE has issued the new SOPs/guidelines to write the Annual Restricted Reports AARs (famously known as Annual Confidential Reports ACRs) of teaching and non-teaching staff working under the umbrella of FDE for the year 2021.
According to the new guidelines, the Director concerned will write the ACRs of the Principals of BPS-19 or 20 being the reporting officer and the Director General or Dy Director General will countersign the ACRs being the countersigning officer.
Similarly the ACRs of Associate Professors/Vice Principals will be written by the Principal concerned (as reporting officer) and will be countersigned by the concerned Director (being countersigning officer).
The vice Principal of the institution has been authorized to write the ACRs of Assistant Professors, Lecturers and teachers of grade 16 and 17. Principal will be the countersigning officer. 03064099941
All the reporting officers have been directed to furnish the ACRs of all teachers to the countersigning officers by January 31, 2022. The countersigning officers will submit all the ACRs/AARs in one lot to Administrative officer FDE by February 28, 2022.
Previously, the Area Education Officer (AEO) was authorised to evaluate the annual performance of BPS-19 officers like Principals, Vice Principals and Associate Professors. He/She was also responsible to countersign the ACRs of lecturers (BPS-17) and Assistant Professors (BPS-18).
This process was nothing more than empty buzzwords since it failed to internalize teachers’ performance results because AEO had not sufficient information about teachers. Consequently, FDE authorities needed to revamp the process of evaluation.
The president of Federal Government College Teachers Association (FGCTA) Dr Rahima Rahman has welcomed the move.
She said that it was the demand of FGCTA that Principals and Vice principals should evaluate the performance of teachers instead of AEO because Principals and Vice principals have the instant knowledge about teacher’s performance. We, the college teachers, are thankful to FDE authorities, particularly the DG who improved the evaluation system of teachers.
However, there is still room for improvement. Monitoring the performance of teachers is often a complex task that needs flexibility. Evaluation of performance on the basis of subject results and biometric attendance is not an objective criterion.
Many dedicated teachers have poor results of their students because of the nature of subjects or poor intake of students by the institution.
It does not mean that teacher is incompetent. The key is to understand how effectively and efficiently he/she has performed over the course of the year.
Jabir Hussain, press secretary of the association said, “Unfortunately some of the reporting officers do not always evaluate the teachers on objective criteria because of personal liking or disliking. Our eight teachers have been deprived of their due promotions on the basis of average ACRs a few months ago. If their performance was not satisfactory five years ago, why should they have not been informed at that time? They came to know about it when their names were dropped in the list of promotees.
When such deficiencies appear in the evaluation system, it frustrates the teacher, reduces the teacher’s motivation and creates a perception of unfairness. So teachers’ performance should be evaluated fairly, consistently and objectively and they should be informed about their ACRs annually, he demanded.