Raid by AAP MLA: Amritsar teachers, school heads say ‘not in a state of panic’

Neha Saini

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Amritsar, March 16

A day after an AAP MLA conducted a raid at a government school in Jalandhar, school heads and teachers from government schools said they are not in a state of ‘panic’ and are doing their job as earlier.

With the new government putting spotlight on health and education sector, newly elected MLAs are already making surprise visits to government schools in various constituencies. Meanwhile, school heads and teachers in the city are expecting positive interactions with MLAs.

Jandiala MLA Harbhajan Singh ETO, too, visited Government Girls School, Jandiala Guru, and another one in Wadala Johal village to take stock. He spoke about infrastructural requirements at the school and interacted with teachers and staff. More such visits might be on the cards, said Mandeep Kaur, Principal, GGSSSS, Mall Road, adding that the intent behind these ‘surprise checks’ must be right. “We are in no state of panic, as we already have a proper infrastructure in place. Most schools in urban centres have undergone infrastructural upgrade in the past one-and-a-half year due to Covid-19. As far as issues in education are concerned, the most-important one is recruitment of teachers,” she said.

Pankaj Sharma, a teacher at Government Middle School, Bhoewali, said the major problem was not just infrastructural lapses, but having qualified teachers. “There has been no recruitment in primary schools for the past five years and no promotions have been given since 2018. To ensure quality education, we need to have enough teachers. I hope AAP leaders work on policy as well as infrastructure.”

The District Education Department has been silent till now, with no specific guidelines or notices issued with regard to any changes in schools. Dharminder Gill, Coordinator, SSA, of the only government school for special children in the district at Karampura, said checks are fine, only they must not be a superficial exercise. “Indeed, there needs to be some infra upgrades at primary and elementary-level schools, especially in rural belts. There are schools with just one teacher tending to five classes, besides administrative issues.”

Don’t raid or bully staff, DTF tells govt

Amritsar: The district unit of the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) objected to the raid conducted by AAP’s newly elected Jalandhar MLA at a government school and streaming it live on his social media account. Democratic Employees’ Federation state president Jarmanjit Singh, who strongly objected to the presence of the mob that followed the leader on the school premises, said representatives of the Punjab Government need to exercise seriousness and restraint on sensitive issues like education. “Don’t raid schools, conduct surprise checks regularly. The derailed education system needs steps to fix it responsibly, through the Department of Education, through collaborative efforts of teachers, instead of ‘raiding them’ or bullying them. There are many vacancies in government schools and hospitals and the Class-IV staff has not been recruited for long. The poor condition of government buildings is the responsibility of the government and not of an employee as there is a huge cost involved in repairing these buildings for which a grant has to be released by the government. Teachers and employees serve people diligently. They are fulfilling their responsibilities diligently but have been neglected for long,” he said.