Govt to scrap training centres for teachers

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, August 20

The School Education Department has shifted more than 30 clerks out of 34 from three Circle Education Offices (CEO), and all lecturers and senior lecturers from 12 district-based In-Service Training Centres in the state.

The development is being seen as a move to abolish the CEOs in Faridkot, Nabha and Jalandhar, and the training centres. On Friday, the department transferred more than 30 clerks in the CEOs to the Block Primary Education Offices (BPEOs). It has planned to transfer 14 senior assistants from the CEOs to other branches.

Once senior assistants are also shifted, every CEO will be left with only one clerk, one superintendent and one Circle Education Officer.

Last week, more than 100 lecturers and senior lecturers from the training centres were shifted to senior secondary schools. Now, every training centre is left with only a principal and a clerk.

Krishan Kumar, Secretary (School Education), said: “Employees have been shifted to places, where their services are more required.”

On the plan to abolish the CEOs and training centres, he said the state government would take the right decision to improve the department’s functioning.

Sources said the department had decided to abolish the training centres because these were almost non-functional for the past several years. “No teacher is trained at these centres. Now, the District Institute for Education and Training (DIET) is training them,” they said.

“At a time when posts of principal in several senior secondary schools are lying vacant, senior lecturers were posted in the training centres, serving no purpose, Kumar added.

Meanwhile, those transferred are upset with the department’s decision. Some, on the verge of retirement, have been shifted to faraway places. To show their resentment, some have gone on leave without pay.