Transfer leaves Jalandhar school without teacher

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 20

A school with a strength of 102 students in Jalandhar has been left without any teacher owing to the state government’s recent transfers of teachers. This despite instructions from the state government that no teacher should be transferred from a school with a single teacher. It is in blatant violation of guidelines as per which there should be at least one teacher against 40 students.

Following the recent transfers in the Education Department, many schools in the district are facing shortage of teachers. Government Elementary School Maur Sahib in the Phillaur block, which has 102 students, does not have any teacher. The only teacher in the school was transferred recently. The latest transfer from the school of the only working ETT teacher was done on August 14. However, under a temporary arrangement, the department has sent a sikhiya provider from Government Elementary School, Mianwal, to Maur Sahib.

Meanwhile, a number of other schools in the block, especially those falling under the Partabpura cluster, have only one teacher. These include Government Elementary Schools at Partabpura, Kalyanpur Kang Araian, Begampura, Bhaini and Kuliyan Tehal Singh.

Rampal, DEO (Elementary), Jalandhar, said, “All the orders are from the top and we are just executing them. We are also worried about the dearth of teachers, but it’s a widespread phenomenon. At least 35 teachers from the district have been posted to Mansa, Sangrur, etc. because these were their original stations. The upcoming rationalisation is expected to address the crisis.”

Inderjit Singh, DPI (Elementary), said, “There are clear-cut instructions of not shifting any teacher if the school only has a single teacher. If that has been done, action will be taken against the DEO. Sikhiya providers can’t handle entire schools.”