Teachers voice concern over e-transfer facility

LAHORE : While restrictions on e-transfer facility for schoolteachers in Punjab have been irking stakeholders, this has especially attracted the wrath of single teachers as they have been unable to apply for transfer despite availability of posts in other schools.

This anger by single teachers could be seen in comments on social media posts of Punjab School Education Minister Murad Raas. Supporting such teachers and many others who have been unable to apply for transfer, Punjab Govt Schools Association of Computer Teachers (PACT) has announced holding a protest demonstration against the School Education Department (SED) Punjab on December 23. On the other hand, Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) has also expressed concerns in this regard demanding the chief minister to take notice of the same and provide relief to schoolteachers.

Punjab Schools Minister Murad Raas had recently made an announcement vis-à-vis e-transfer saying all categories were open for the teachers to apply. However, talking to The News, a number of teachers said all categories were open for teachers for a few days only and later on many posts were blocked and teachers were unable to apply.

Saddique Awan, a government schoolteacher from Lahore, said that he wanted to apply to transfer to his native town in Muzaffargarh but since he was a single teacher of computer subject in his school, he was unable even to apply for transfer. He said it was responsibility of the department to hire teachers to meet the shortage of teaching staff but instead it had deprived teachers of their right to get transferred.

It is pertinent to mention here that as per the SED Punjab’s School Information System (SIS) of around 450,000 sanction posts over 93,000 posts of schoolteachers are lying vacant in the province. During the last three years only a few hundred schoolteachers had been recruited by the SED Punjab. Another teacher, Amir, said that he had been a victim of Student-Teacher Ratio (STR) as he had been unable to get transferred within Lahore since 2017. “I have to travel over 30 km every day each side to my school,” he said and added for female teachers such issues were common and really problematic. He said he was one of the six teachers for 200+ primary level students in his school and was unable to apply for transfer because this was against the transfer rules. In one of the comments on the minister’s Twitter post about e-transfer a citizen Danish Mustafa wrote that his sister (a government schoolteacher) and, a mother of four had, to travel 4 hours daily to school but she could not get transferred because of STR despite serving in the same school for 10 years.

Talking to The News, PACT president Kashif Shahzad Ch said that the demo was being organised to highlight and protest against anti-teacher policies. He said some 3,000 to 4,000 posts had been blocked on the online transfer system while single teachers were worst affected by the STR policy as they were unable to apply. He said the department should go for mass level recruitment drive to meet the shortage of teachers and provide relief to students and teachers already serving. PTU general secretary Rana Liaqat also expressed concerns over e-transfer saying thousands of posts had blocked on the online system and teachers were unable to apply. He also said that STR policy was anti-teacher in nature and the same needed to be amended. He said that all the blocked posts should be opened in the system and female teachers should be given the right to get transferred near their homes. The News could not reach Schools Minister Murad Raas for his comments despite repeated attempts on his cellphone.