Punjab starts teachers''rationalisation'

Initiative part of ongoing efforts to 'optimise resources' in government schools

RAWALPINDI:

Following the federal government's proposal to push back the retirement age to 55 years, the education department urgently requested the details, including placement locations and scales, of all teachers between the ages of 50 and 55 years employed in government schools.

The Chief Executive Officers (CEO) of the District Education Authorities have been directed in the letter to immediately provide the details of the teachers between the ages of 50 and 55 years who want voluntary early retirement.

The district education officers have already started compiling complete and detailed data of teachers. This data has to be sent to the Higher Education Authority before December 20. After this data is received from all the districts across Punjab, requests for voluntary retirement of teachers and non-teaching staff will be considered.

The provincial finance ministry has also been taken on board in this regard, while any final decision will be taken after the approval of the Punjab cabinet.

Rationalisation of teachers

The rationalisation of government school teachers will start from next week. In this regard, a circular has been issued to the District Education Authorities CEOs of all 42 districts of the province.

The rationalisation will be done at the district level under the supervision of district education officers. Preparations have been completed to immediately send the SST head teachers posted in middle schools to high schools. Orders have been issued to CEOs to immediately appoint middle school SST head teachers in high schools.

Immediately after this, SST teachers will be rationalised from those high schools where students are less, and teachers are more, and they will be sent to the high schools where teachers are less, and students are more.

Following this, there will be rationalisation of teachers from the middle and primary schools which have a smaller number of students and more teachers, and they will be posted in such primary and elementary schools where there are more students and less teachers. All powers of rationalisation have been transferred to the CEOs of all districts and orders have been given to complete the process by winter holidays.

Name change

On the other hand, the Education Department has issued instructions to all district and tehsil education officers to remove the word 'Insaf' from the names of 6,000 primary schools in Punjab, which were upgraded and given the status of middle schools in the evening shift during the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government.

These schools, previously known as 'Insaf Afternoon Schools,' will now be called 'Afternoon Middle Schools.' The education officers have been instructed to implement this change immediately and submit a report after removing the word 'Insaf' from the names of girls and boys second-shift schools and installing new boards with the updated name.

These schools, built in all districts of Punjab, have been offering middle classes in both morning and afternoon shifts for the past four years.