Education dept reaches out to teachers battling disability

Varinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 28

Distressed government teachers and their families — grappling with handicaps like deformities, family problems and illness — were in for a surprise when Education Minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema phoned a few of them to enquire about their problems.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Education Department — which is handling the herculean task of dealing with more than 23,000 transfer applications, mostly from teachers — has decided not to displace any teacher whose wards or family members are suffering from any serious physical or mental handicap.

The department has to finish the annual general transfer exercise by June 30.

The department, however, has launched a special drive to adjust all those teachers closer to their homes or at their stations of suitability, who or whose family members are suffering from serious health or family problems.

Such teachers have already been told to register themselves on the department website. As many as 1,943 state government teachers have applied during the past two days.

Gurnam Singh, a teacher working in Nawanshahr district, never thought that he would receive a call on his mobile phone from Cheema, asking him about his problems.

In a choked voice, Gurnam narrated his tale of woes saying he wanted to be posted to Ropar district as his two sons were suffering from learning difficulties. They were facing serious physiological disorders, being mentally challenged up to 70 and 90 per cent.

Jagtar Singh, another teacher from Mansa district, told the minister that his three-year-old daughter was suffering from cancer and her treatment was going on at PGI in Chandigarh.

Some others requested transfers on the basis of being posted in faraway places.

“A teacher from Fazilka told me that he was physically handicapped up to 80 per cent while his wife was ortho-handicapped up to 60 per cent,” Cheema told The Tribune.

He said that transfer or adjustment requests from people suffering from serious problems were pouring in continuously.

“We are verifying the genuineness of such cases. Transfers or adjustments of such teachers will be done immediately. But we will not displace those teachers whose children are suffering from serious ailments,” said Dr Cheema.

He said the District Education Officers (DEOs) have also been asked to identify distressed teachers at their own level so that maximum efforts could be made to help them.

2,200 teachers promoted, 650 lecturers recruited 

Chandigarh: The Punjab Education Department has completed the task of recruitment of 650 lecturers besides promoting 2,200 teachers as lecturers at a high-level meeting presided over by Education Minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema. He said that after the completion of the process of recruitment and promotion, allotment of stations to the new lecturers would start in the first week of July. He said that newly recruited lecturers would be called according to merit and given the station of their choice. — TNS