The Punjab School Education Department has decided to take action against the heads of schools showing poor performance in the recently announced matriculation results.
The department has reportedly given the last warning to the headmasters and headmistresses to submit their schools’ results. The chief executive officers (CEO) of all district education authorities have also been instructed to submit the data pertaining to the results.
According to school education department officials, thousands of students across Punjab showed poor performance in the annual results and the school heads and district education authority CEOs responsible would face action under the Punjab Employees Efficiency, Discipline and Accountability (PEEDA) Act.
On the other hand, CEOs appear to be hesitant to submit the data of performance of schools in their districts to the department.
An official said there was a shortage of around 100,000 schoolteachers in the province, which was the main cause of the poor results.
The officials of the education department said while speaking to The Express Tribune that about 30% of schools in Punjab had shown poor results in the matriculation examinations. They said the department wanted to compile the performance data of the school heads of each district.
“An instruction was sent to the education authority CEOs of all districts of Punjab to submit their data to the department. However, the CEOs ignored the department’s instruction.
Now the department has issued a last warning to the CEOs concerned in all districts to submit the performance data so that action may be initiated against all headmasters, headmistresses and CEOs whose results are unsatisfactory,” said a senior official of the school education department.
“The department will take strict action against all school heads whose students’ success rate was less than 10%. The action will be taken under the PEEDA Act,” he added. The official said personal hearings would be held to ascertain the reasons of the poor results.
“We asked the CEOs two weeks ago to send us the names of all headmasters whose schools’ result is poor, but they appear to be protecting the educationists who may face action as they did not send us the names,” he said.
A headmaster, Muhammd Farooq, alleged that the provincial government and school education department were trying to cover up their own poor performance by taking action against teachers.
“There is a shortage of around 100,000 schoolteachers in Punjab but we have to continue the academic activities. A large number of schools in the province do not have science teachers. This is affecting the performance of students from poor families as there is a trend of private tuition in most districts and the students are left at the mercy of private academies to pass their exams. But there are thousands of students whose families cannot afford private coaching,” he said.
He said the teachers could not do much amid the circumstances where staff shortage and in adequate infrastructure, including labs and school buildings are directly affecting the annual examination results. Farooq said the government should resolve these issues before taking action against the headmasters.
Punjab Teachers Union secretary general Rana Liaqat Ali said it was very difficult to show good results amid a shortage of 100,000 teachers.
The school headmasters and the whole teaching community is struggling hard to give a bright future to the students but our genuine issues should be addressed.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 24th, 2022.
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