Edu. Deptt entangled in various court cases due to negative approach, AETA demands early promotions in Master Cadre (English)

In 6282 schools, only 1500 English teachers in position

Ferozepur, October 20, 2016: With the litigation of number of cases of by the aggrieved teachers suffering from departmental apathy, it has put a big question mark on the working on the Punjab Education Department.

Stating this, the convener of the Association for English Teaching Aspirants (AETA), Punjab, Kushal Singhi asserted that on the one hand, the state government makes hefty claims to improve the standard of education in the state run schools, and on the other the education department itself harasses its teachers who approach it for their legitimate rights.

Interestingly, the department mostly does so, on the pretext of their files being hooked up into the finance department or the personnel department. The bureaucracy assigned with the task of setting things right is seldom friendly to them. In fact, for most of the times it is this very bureaucratic barrier which makes the teachers resort to the legal course against the department. There are numerous cases lying pending in the courts. All this tells upon the efficiency of the teachers in particular and the state of education in general, he added.

Khushal Singh further substantiated his charges with the example of  his Association&#39s own demand of getting promoted from the E.T.T. cadre to the Master cadre in the subject of English for which they approached the department so many times. But the department paid no heed to their legitimate demand citing some ill-framed excuses of absence of rules or the file being in the personnel department compelling the teachers to move to courts to seek justice.

He has appealed to the Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema to overhaul the functioning of the education department so that the teachers may come out of this unnecessary litigation and may discharge their duties to their best.

Parvinder Singh, another spokesman of the teachers fraternity said, there is no solid and uniform policy of teaching.  Social Science teachers are teaching the English language, no promotion or recruitment policy, high level of failure in Matriculation exams.  It is very unfortunate that the foreign embassies are not providing visas to Punjab Education Board pass-outs.

He said, , there is no creativity but negativity over the genuine matters of the teachers. The fate of school pass-out students is at stake in this competition era when knowledge of English language is must while pursuing for higher studies and jobs with the multi-national companies.  There is no effective policy to teach and learn global language. The government must fill up all vacant of English teachers through promotion process or direct recruitment to uplift the standard of education.

Another teacher on anonymity said, the English language which is only the language to reduce the communication gap is poor at the primary and high level schools and it is very unfortunate that the education in India is still on trials even after 70 years of independence.  There is need to strengthen the education system at the primary level by providing the teaching faculty to its full capacity otherwise in this competition age, the survival of school-pass outs in market for seeking employment, is not possible.

Added here, a notice for public meeting was also advertisement by the Government of Punjab, Department of School Education to dispose of the pending court cases on September 16 but the outcome is yet to be made public.

Sources said, the department is entangled in thousands of court cases but in such public meetings only soft cases are taken up whereas all major issues are lingering on in the various courts.

At least one English teacher must be posted in one school.  Presently, there are 6,282 Middle and High Schools in the state against which around 1500 English teachers are posted which means two-third schools are without English teachers and day today work is assigned to Social Science teachers.  Sources further said, only 200 posts of English teachers have been advertised whereas 1500 posts of Social Science teachers have been advertised. It looks that the government is not serious about the English subject and fate of 16 lac students in government schools in this competition era can be well-imagined.