Teacher-student ratio: Court moved against Punjab govt policy

Seek explanation for violating of stay order.

RAWALPINDI:

The Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) Attock chapter on Wednesday moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) against implementation of a rationalisation policy of Punjab’s school education department. The PTU earlier got a stay order from the court on October 1, 2010, against the department’s policy, which aimed to maintain a 1:40 ratio between school teachers and students.

Justice Sagheer Ahmed Qadri of the LHC Rawalpindi bench issued notices to Executive District Officer (EDO) Education Attock to submit his report on the contempt petition of the teachers in two weeks.

PTU President Shahzada Sultan Mehmood and its General Secretary Kapoor Hussain, through their lawyer Tnaveer Iqbal Khan, maintained that the EDO issued a notification for implementation of the rationalisation policy on May 14, 2011 even though the high court had stayed the matter last year and the petition was pending. They urged the court to seek explanation from the district education authorities for violating the stay order.

The petitioners maintained that through the rationalisation process, initiated in July 2010, the provincial education department had disturbed its general transfer and promotion policy that had been reinforced by judgments of the higher courts.

They said the government decided to put the teacher student ration to 1:40 while at present the ratio was 1:29 as 363,374 teachers were available for the total 10,644,878 students in Punjab.

They said many other rules were being violated regarding the transfers of female teachers on wedlock basis and many teachers were being put in surplus pools.

The teachers’ representatives have asked the court to annul the transfers and stop the authorities from pursuing the rationalisation policy. Additionally the union’s Rawalpindi chapter also opposed the rationalisation policy, terming it an attempt that would lead to termination of their jobs.

PTU Rawalpindi’s head Saghir Alam Chaudhry Rawalpindi said the school teachers were “not ready to accept the policy as it had disturbed the basic structure for the promotion and transfers of the teachers”.

Justice Qadri directed Assistant Advocate General Nadeem Bhatti to seek response from the district education officer and assist the court on the next date of hearing.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2011.