2,260 teachers' promotion stalled over degree row

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, July 19

The School Education Department today issued orders to stall the promotion of 2,260 teachers who were promoted as lecturer on July 3 due to a controversy over the authenticity of post-graduation degrees of over 1,000 masters and mistresses in government schools in the state.

Balbir Singh Dhol, Director of Public Instructions (DPI) (Secondary Education), Punjab, today issued orders that the promotions would remain in abeyance till further orders.

The employees who have already joined their place of posting following the promotion orders shall not be treated as promoted. Their pay shall be drawn in the pay scales meant for masters and mistresses.

The controversy over the promotion and authenticity of qualification of the teachers started when the School Education Department started the process to promote post-graduate schoolteachers to the post of lecturer last month.

While promoting 2,260 masters, the department denied promotion to over 1,000 other masters, saying that their degrees from universities outside Punjab under the distance learning mode were not genuine as per University Grant Commission (UGC) rules.

Some teachers, who were denied promotion for their ‘dubious’ degrees, approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court, claiming their degrees were genuine. Anticipating more litigation over these promotions, the department has now kept all promotions in abeyance till further orders.

To get clarification on the authenticity of the degrees procured under distance education mode, a team of the School Education Department on Monday rushed to UGC, New Delhi.

It got a public notice from the UGC according to which the conduct of the examination by the universities for their open and distance learning programme outside the state of their location or beyond their territorial jurisdiction is illegal.

According to the DEC and UGC’s November 2012 and June 2013 notifications, the state university (government-funded or private) shall operate only within its territorial jurisdiction and in no case, beyond the territory of its location, said Joint Secretary, (DEB) UGC, in the public notice issued on July 18.

The School Education Department stopped the process of allocating place of posting to the promoted employees immediately after the writ was filed in the High Court.

However, the teachers, who have already joined the new posting, would remain at their present place till further orders, said Balbir Singh Dhol, DPI.