Thousands of government schools across Punjab continue to face a severe shortage of teachers, creating serious challenges for the public education system.
According to sources around 12,000 School Teacher Interns (STIs) have not received their salaries for the past three months.
Salaries for December, January and February could not be released leaving the interns in financial difficulty.
Despite limited resources and non-payment of salaries the STIs are still performing their duties in government schools across the province. Temporary teachers have urged the provincial education minister to take notice of the delay in salary payments and resolve the issue on a priority basis.
In addition the recruitment process of another 12,500 temporary teachers has also been stalled further worsening the shortage of teaching staff in government schools.
Meanwhile the School Education Department has assured that the pending salaries of School Teacher Interns will be paid soon and efforts are being made to address the issue.
Thousands of teachers deprived of promotions since last two years
Thousands of teachers across Punjab are being deprived of promotions despite having seniority, as their online Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) have not been submitted sources in the Education Department revealed.
According to sources, the application developed by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) for submitting online ACRs has remained inactive for the past two years.
The Program Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PMIU) also failed to effectively operate the Human Resource Management System (HRMS) app.
Officials said that teachers’ online ACRs were last collected in 2023 and ACRs for the academic years 2024–25 have not yet been received.
Furthermore annual performance reports have only been compiled for the period from 2020 to 2023.
Under the existing policy teachers’ promotions were to be granted on the basis of online ACR submissions.
However due to the technical and administrative issues the promotion process has come to a halt that he has caused frustration among educators.
Teachers urged the authorities to immediately restore the system and ensure timely collection of ACRs to prevent further delays in promotions.
Also read: Thousands of teachers deprived of promotions since last two years
