M A I N   N E W S

Seven Principals reverted as lecturers
New promotion policy makes them ineligible
Chander Parkash
Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 26
As many as seven officiating principals of various government colleges have come in for a rude shock as they have been reverted as lecturers by the state education authorities via a new promotion policy.

Though in legal terms the accordance of the status of “current duty charge principal” to a lecturer is not considered a promotion, the education authorities seem to have humiliated them, making their juniors as principals.

Official sources said some of the “current duty charge principals” had been ordered to work as lecturers in the college they had been posted as principals in July, 2000.

According to information gathered by TNS some of these principals have proceeded on leave while a section has approached the court against the decision of the Punjab Government.

Mr Ashok Kapur was ordered to work as lecturer in English in the same college he had worked as principal. The new incumbent, Mr Gopal Singh, who has been transferred from Government Mohindra College, Patiala, and posted as principal here, is junior to Mr Kapur in the seniority list.

The other six principals who have been made lecturers again are Mrs M.P. Sidhu of Government Education College, Faridkot, Mr Kuldip Dhillon, Mr H.K.M. Huria, Mr J.L. Dhir, Mr G.P.S. Bhatia and Ms Manorma Joshi. Six other senior lecturers have been ignored for promotion by the authorities which had changed the policy of promotion from seniority-cum-merit basis to merit-cum-seniority basis in December, 2000.

Mr Jaipal Singh, president, Punjab Government College Teachers Association, talking to TNS, said the Punjab Government has started playing a havoc with the careers of college teachers by adopting a “wrong” promotion policy.

He pointed out that earlier a lecturer was eligible for promotion as principal if he had got three “best annual confidential reports (ACRs)”. Now the education authorities have done grading of ACRs. It had been made mandatory for a lecturer to get minimum 15 marks out of 20 worked out on the basis of five consecutive “outstanding ACRs”.

He said the new promotion policy would make the maximum number of lecturers ineligible for becoming principals, even after more than three decades of regular service.

A principal who has been reverted as lecturer, talking to TNS on the condition of anonymity, said the authorities should have judged their capability when they were made CDC principal.

Mr Jaipal Singh said a decision on an agitation against the “working” policy of the authorities would be taken at the next meeting of the association.