Cash awards for administrators, punishments for headmasters

LAHORE: The Punjab government has taken a carrot and stick approach towards getting better results for the public school system in the province, however the schoolteachers are getting the bitter end of the bargain.

The Punjab government’s Punjab Education Sector Reform Programme (PMIU) Programme Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PESRP) has announced, through a notification, awards for 5 districts and one division on the basis of Performance Evaluation Index (PEI) developed by the PMIU-PERSP. However, the awards, two months gross pay, will go to administrators of the selected districts.



On the other hand, the Punjab School Education Department (SED) has asked the district authorities to prepare a performance evaluation for school heads on the basis of matriculation results. A letter sent in this regard stated that those headmasters whose schools performed well will be given an appreciation letter and those with poor results will be punished under the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability (PEEDA) Act 2006.

A notification from the PMIU-PERSP, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune stated, “The chief minister has been pleased to approve honorarium/reward to the education managers of top five performing districts, as evaluated through a quarterly review in accordance with Performance Evaluation Index (PEI), developed by the Punjab Education Sector Reform Programme - Programme Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PMIU-PESRP).”

It added, “PMIU-PERSP is hereby pleased to announce the names of five top performing districts and one top division for their performance vis-a-vis key indicators i.e. PEI during the quarter April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2017.” According to the notification, the five top districts include Hafizabad, Jhelum, Kasur, Nankana Sahib and Lodhran respectively, while Rawalpindi has been declared the top division in the performance evaluation.

Announcing the awards, the notification said, “Administrators and Chief Executive Officers (CE0s) of District Education Authorities (DEAs), of the above mentioned districts and the commissioner of the above mentioned division are entitled to receive an honorarium equivalent to two months’ gross pay.”

In contrast, a letter by the SED sent to all DEAs of the province before the matriculation results said, “As you are well aware of the facts that the result of Secondary School Examination 2017 is being declared in near future. The School Education Department government of the Punjab has decided that the head of the institution showing good results be awarded appreciation letter and the heads who have shown poor performance be dealt with under PEEDA ACT 2006 as per previous practice.”



Talking to The Express Tribune, Punjab Teachers’ Union (PTU) General Secretary Rana Liaquat Ali was of the view that punishments and awards should be based on reviewing the ground realities of the public school system. He said, “The teachers are asked to work on other duties throughout the year, including census, examination, private school survey and data entry duties. This combined with the fact that there is no system for entrance test for public schools during the admission process and this leads to intake of students who are weak academically leads to mixed results for even the best public schools”.

He said that a better approach would be to inquire the reasons behind bad results and to find out whether these schools lacked resources or there were other reasons such as single or two teacher schools behind poor result. The practice of punishing teachers for poor results and no award or appreciation for good results should be stopped, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2017.