What ails public-sector education?
I asked 12 year-old Sultan (pseudonym) to read from his Urdu textbook. He struggled to read a simple sentence (“more sher ki tarha jungle kaa badshah hai”). While he eventually…
Overworked civil servants
BACK in my civil service days, one comment by a senior stuck in my head for years. In a moment of candid frustration, the senior civil servant confessed that he…
Public service reforms — III
In order to allow for the transition to a unified single public service, those who are currently working as civil servants will be automatically admitted into the fast stream. The…
Public service reforms – I
In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant of the US appointed Dorman B. Eaton as the chair of the first Civil Service Commission, who later went to England in 1875 to…
Public service reforms — II
Parliaments at the federal and provincial levels should make laws pertaining to the formulation of respective recruitment commissions (indicated in part-I of this series of articles by this writer) so…
Rethink public accountability
Last week, at a conference on innovative finance, Planning Minister Asad Umar commented on a question on risks associated with public private partnership (PPP) projects that when bad decisions are…
Need to reform public sector
Being nominated as a non-executive chairman or director of the governing board of directors in the public sector enterprises (PSEs) including financial institutions, corporations and privatised units still having government…
Will you serve the public?
What is it that keeps a highly educated professional with diverse experience in the lowly paid civil services of Pakistan? Is it the palatial GOR residences, the colonial era cushy…
Reforming public service
A pyramid-like structure for the civil service -- more at the bottom, less at the top, on the pattern of armed forces -- is being talked about. The exact contours…
Civil servants in limbo
Quite a few recent decisions regarding senior bureaucrats have raised doubts about the federal government’s capacity for a fair management of human resources. First, NADRA’s head was axed in circumstances…
