Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today exhorted the teachers to discharge their duties as nation builders with utmost devotion, honesty and commitment to shape the destiny of our future generations.Addressing the newly appointed 4500 teachers here at Mandi Bhawan, the Chief Minister said that it was the matter of great joy and satisfaction both for you and the state government to hand over appointment letters after a long drawn strenuous procedure to ensure fair selection. Mr. Badal said that he had been apprised by the Education Minister that the entire recruitment process has been done solely on the merit. The Chief Minister emphasized the need to always ensure the selection process in a fair, transparent and unbiased manner to enable the bright and capable students to prove their worth and it was all the more important especially in the case of teachers, who were responsible for strong foundation of the student’s career. He said that 14,000 more teachers would be recruited soon as the selection process was already on way.
On this joyous occasion, the Chief Minister congratulated the candidates as well as their parents for their sheer hard work in securing a government job at the same time he called upon the newly recruited teachers to desist from the trend to get their places of posting frequently changed through mounting pressure on the authorities, which was unfair especially for the young teachers who could easily serve in the rural areas more enthusiastically in the prime of their youth. He rued that lot of time and energy was wasted on transfers and postings adding that where such transfers were mandatory in view of some pressing family circumstances could be considered sympathetically but teacher should not make it a routine exercise.The Chief Minister further said that he had give free hand to key departments of Health and Education to recruit as much as staff they required against the vacant posts because paucity of staff in these departments adversely hampered their functioning and thus directly affects the life of a common man. Mr. Badal further said the state government has opened 10 meritorious schools across the state to impart quality education to the bright students with rural background so as to enable them to compete with their peers educated from convent and private schools.
The state government has already earmarked a budgetary provision of Rs.10 crore to provide free education facilities to the students passed out from these meritorious schools to pursue professional higher education in the fields of technical, medical etc. Another endeavour of the state government to set up Maharaja Ranjit Singh Armed Forces Preparatory Institute for boys and Mai Bhago Armed Forces Preparatory Institute for girls had gone well with the state in reversing the trend of falling quota of officers’ recruitment of our youth in the armed forces. Nearly 70,000 youth have been given employment in Police, Paramilitary Forces and Army through C-PYTE. He said several Skill Centres were being opened to impart vocational training to enable our youth to be gainfully employed.On the occasion, Education Minister Dr. Daljeet Singh Cheema appreciated the vision of Chief Minister for taking path breaking initiatives in the School Education department. He further said that the timely recruitments in the department would surely bring transformation in the Education system thereby imparting quality Education to the students.The Chief Minister was accompanied by Cabinet Minister Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema, SGPC Member Jathedar Amarjeet Singh Chawla, Additional Chief Secretary Mr G Vajralingam, Deputy Commissioner Mr DS Mangat and Senior Superintendent of Police Mr GS Bhullar.