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Punjab to shift schoolteachers enjoying ‘special postings’
Sanjeev Singh Bariana
Tribune News Service

‘Special postings’

At least 3,000 teachers have managed “special postings” to stay put in cities and towns of their choice Teachers and principals posted in villages in which they lived for decades Posting orders would be issued very shortly, says Education Minister Sikandar Singh Maluka

Chandigarh, August 1
At a time when hundreds of government schools in rural Punjab are facing an acute shortage of teachers, the Education Department has found at least 3,000 teachers who have managed “special postings” to stay put in cities and towns of their choice for years together.

What sent alarm bells ringing was the recent case of a government high school near Mohali that had one teacher teaching a specific subject in which only one student had enrolled. And if that was not enough, the lone student in the class failed the exam! As it turned out, the teacher in question had got a “special posting” in a school that was near her place of residence.

Then began the process of searching for teachers on “special postings” and glaring examples of teacher postings without benefit to students tumbled out one after the other. Apart from the 3,000-odd government schoolteachers who had been serving in preferred cities and towns for years, the Punjab Education Department also found several teachers and principals posted in villages in which they lived for decades.

The department is now compiling a list of surplus teachers, who will be shortly moved out of their “comfort zone” to rural schools across the state that are in dire need of teachers.

Education Minister Sikandar Singh Maluka confirmed that the approximate figure of irrational or managed postings stood at a whopping 3,000. He said staff posting orders would be issued very shortly “maybe within a week’s time”. He said majority of teachers who had managed their postings were in towns and cities, but some had even manipulated to stay on in their villages.

Though Hussan Lal, Secretary School Education, did not give any figures, he said “a detailed survey was underway with considerably high figures”.

The minister said there were several known instances of irrational postings in government schools, acknowledging what the Director General School Education found in a recent survey - in Bathinda district, there were two teachers for a single student in a school. At the same time there were an unspecified number of schools, particularly in rural areas, that did not have a teacher for a particular subject even for a class of 40.