KARACHI: The Sindh government’s decision to exclude master’s degree in social work as qualification for the post of assistant directors in the provincial social welfare department has sent a wave of resentment among the holders of degrees in the discipline, it emerged on Sunday.

Informed sources told Dawn that a large number of young master’s degree holders in social work had been deprived of availing the opportunity to be inducted in the social welfare department, through the Sindh Public Service Commission, as the required qualification in a recent advertisement for the post of assistant director was master’s in sociology and the age limit for the candidates was 21 to 28 years.

They said that the master degree in social work was surprisingly excluded from the eligibility criteria with any reason for the first time as historically all advertisements for the same positions since the inception of the provincial social welfare department was master’s degree in sociology or social work.

The sources said that the age limit for eligible candidates was also reduced as earlier it was 28 to 32 years, thus adversely affecting a large number of people who had obtained their degrees in the last few years.

Candidates having master’s in social work degree become ineligible for assistant director posts in social welfare dept

They said that retired officials of the social welfare department also termed it as injustice to holders of the master’s degrees in social work.

The sources said that the Karachi University’s Department of Social Work had also raised the issue with provincial authorities requesting them to include the master’s degree in social work as required qualification for the post of assistant director in the provincial social welfare department.

The department also pointed out that the average age for qualifying for any master’s degree was 22 to 23 year, while the maximum age of any SPSC exam was 30 to 32 years.

It was also pointed out to the authorities that the social work was a professional subject and was most relevant to the domain of the provincial social welfare department.

A senior teacher of the KU’s social work department said that the absolution of the social work subject from the field of social welfare was an injustice to many of the students holding degree in social work.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2022