SESTA calls to book parents of out-of-school children

Suggests salary cuts for govt employees not enrolling their children to public schools

RAWALPINDI:

The Punjab SES Teachers Association (SESTA) proposed that school enrolment of children in every family should be checked while parents who are found to have not admitted their children over the age of five to schools should be sentenced to three-to-six months of imprisonment.

The body also suggested that all government employees should be legally obligated to enrol their children into public schools and in case of violations, the salaries of all such employees should be deducted.

Teachers’ bodies rejected the new admission policy announced by the Punjab government, saying that the responsibility of enrolling children into public schools should be assigned to elected representatives instead of teachers, a spokesperson shared on Monday.

Academic session starts full force

They called on the authorities to ensure maximum enrolment in government schools and to especially bring out-of-school children into educational institutions.

The Rawalpindi SESTA President Shafique Bhalwalia lamented that teachers are responsible for teaching only. He added that teachers are ready to provide standardised education across all public schools as they are highly qualified.

It should be noted that last week the Punjab government announced to enrol 1.2 million children in public schools across the province. The plan has been forwarded to district education officers (DEOs) of all 36 districts of Punjab.

As per this policy, all school heads, teachers as well as lawmakers were tasked to increase enrolments in public schools starting from February.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 2^nd, 2021.