Schoolteachers across Punjab demand resumption of transfers

Teachers’ body says thousands waiting to resume duties in their respective districts

LAHORE: The schoolteachers in Punjab have asked the provincial government to resume the transfer process as it has been halted by the government for the general elections 2018.

In a statement, the Punjab Teachers’ Union (PTU) has called upon the Punjab government for the resumption of the transfers and for the purpose, the union has written a letter to Punjab School Education (PTU) secretary.



The statement said the PTU officer bearers, including Central President Chaudhry Muhammad Sarfaraz, Syed Sajjad Akbar Kazmi, Rana Liaquat Ali, Jam Sadiq and others, have called on the Punjab chief minister, the chief secretary and the SED secretary for the resumption of the transfer process for teachers. They said because of the general elections 2018, the SED had stopped the transfer process of schoolteachers.

The statement read, “Because of the ban, thousands of male and female schoolteachers are waiting for their inter-district and local transfers”. It said completed applications of teachers were collecting dust in the offices of Director Public Instructions (SE/EE) and their respective District Education Authorities (DEAs). While the DEA Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) had yet to display the transfer orders of teachers. The statement said that as the election process was almost complete, thousands from the teaching community were anxiously waiting for the transfer orders.

The PTU demanded that the chief minister and the SED Secretary look into the matter and resume the transfer process of thousands of schoolteachers so that they could get relief and resume work. PTU also demanded that the transfers done in the previous chief minister’s tenure should be immediately cancelled.

The SED had halted the transfer process during the preparation for the general elections. All DEAs CEOs were instructed by the department to not issue any transfer orders as the teachers being deputed for elections duties were undergoing training. However, the department had instructed that the process of scrutiny for the transfers would be continued.

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had shown serious concern over mass transfers of teachers before the general elections. For this reason, the CEOs were told to complete the process of scrutiny of transfer applications before issuing transfer orders. However, no transfer order shall be issued till further instructions of the department, the CEOs were told.



Thousands of teachers had applied for transfers. According to the estimates of the PTU, as many as 7,000 teachers had applied for inter-district transfers and around 50,000 applications had been submitted for transfers within their respective districts.

The teachers had been anxiously waiting for the ban on transfers to be lifted for around one and a half year. The ban on transfers was earlier lifted in 2016 and in March, the SED again lifted the ban and scheduled the application process from April 1 to May 31.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 30^th, 2018.