Taking a far reaching decision today, the Punjab Education Minister, Dr. Daljit Singh Cheema gave nod to the promotion of 4500 head teachers from ETT teachers and 58 Block Primary Education Officers (BPEO) from Centre head teacher post. This step has been promulgated as part of the policy of state government to fill all the vacancies in the primary schools signifying importance towards the primary education. The decision was taken by the Education Minister in a meeting at Punjab Civil Secretariat here with the President of Employee Welfare Board S. Surinder Singh Pehalwan and teacher leaders.In a statement after the meeting, Dr. Cheema said that with the promotion of head teachers, no primary school with student strength of 30 or more would now be sans head teacher.
He also divulged that the process of recruiting 4500 ETT teachers is in the final stages and the advertisement to recruit 2006 more ETT teachers has also been issued. Divulging more, he said that the process to fill up the direct quota vacancies of the BPEOs would also be initiated soon as also the process to fill the promotional quota vacancies of the Principals regarding the schools upgraded from high to senior secondary status. He also informed that the Education department has carried out massive recruitment and promotion drives in the recent period.In another landmark decision, Dr. Cheema empowered District Education Officers (DEOs) to sanction foreign leave up to 1 month. Similarly, the authority to sanction ex-India leave up to 2 months would rest with the DPIs and up to 3 months with the Principal Secretary. He also said that the terms and conditions to avail the leave would remain as before.
He further said that in case of a teacher reporting for duty after the sanctioned period, then the concerned teacher would have to present joining report at the headquarters.Coming to yet another important decision, the Education Minister said that keeping in view the local fairs and festivals, now the 2 local holidays would be sanctioned by the school heads with the prior permission of the District Education Officer. Concerning this, the school head would have to seek permission from the D.E.O. at the beginning of the academic session and after that they would be eligible to declare 2 local holidays at school level on their own accord.Among others present at the meeting included Principal Secretary Mr. G. Vajralingam, Director General School Education Mr. Pardeep Aggarwal, DPI (Secondary Education) Mr. Balbir Singh Dhol, DPI (Elementary Education) Mrs. Pankaj Sharma, Director SCERT Mr. Sukhdev Singh Kahlon, Patron of Adhiyapak Dal Punjab Nachhattar Singh Jahangir, President Adhiyapak Dal Punjab Tejinder Singh Sanghreri, Patron Hardev Singh Jawandha, Harpal Singh Teja and Baaj Singh Khehra.