Test scheduled during holidays, Punjab Education Department draws flak

Chandigarh, May 12

The Democratic Teachers Front Punjab has condemned the state Education Department’s order to conduct online baseline test of students during holidays from May 16 to 19.

In a statement today, Digvijay Pal, president of the front, said, “The bureaucracy and the Education Department, in the name of the aforesaid test, is in a hurry to push schoolchildren as a readymade customer in the information technology market. They are unaware of the present ground realities.”

The front said the reality was that the department was far from providing information technology facilities and had not been able to make available all text books to students.

Besides, after the Class VIII board examinations, exams for Class X and XII were now in progress, the front added. More than half of the teachers in Punjab were currently deployed on examination duties, the front said.

“Teachers have not been able to complete the required educational process for students. Under such circumstances, taking online test is just a formality, which has been blatantly imposed on schools by the ‘controversial’ education secretary of the previous government,” the front added.