In education dept's gradation list, lecturer who died 10 yrs ago, retired teacher settled in Canada

Written by Oindrila Mukherjee

A Hindi lecturer, who died 10 years back and a Punjabi teacher, who took voluntary retirement last year and shifted to Canada, are among 42 lecturers on provisional gradation, if the seniority list of lecturers prepared by the education department is to be believed. Some lecturers on the list are already officiating principals. The education department has released the list of lecturers who were appointed till December 31, 1990. According to a notice, dated March 13, the list has been prepared according to the information available as on February 1. The list has also been uploaded on the official website of the education department.

Teachers claimed that the list is rigged with mistakes and proper information on marking system has not been provided. They said the marks of top three names on the list are missing with the department marking it as “not applicable”.

The department, however, has invited objections till 2 pm on March 20, following which it will be scanned and a final list will be prepared. “Officials should take more care when draft seniority list is prepared. However, people can point out their objections and names will be removed accordingly. Officials will be duly informed to mention the marks but in some recruitment cases, marks may not have been indicated,” said Education Secretary B L Sharma, adding that objections to the list were invited from all those who were affected by it.

Swarn Singh Kamboj, President of UT Cadre Educational Employees Union, said the department has all the data on the recruitment of the teachers and yet the list has mistakes. “If they have all the data, then why are they inviting objections in the first place,” he asked. According to sources, before this, last gradation list of lecturers was prepared by the department in 2006. Kamboj added that the department did not have any uniform policy for preparing gradation lists for any category of teachers. “So, such mistakes are obvious,” he said.

The Union Territory (UT) cadre has 6,000 teachers in total as Junior Basic Teachers, Trained Graduate Teachers, lecturers, school heads and principals. Teachers’ unions of UT have been regularly raising issues of deputation, overstay of teachers from Haryana and Punjab and the absence of a uniform promotion policy.

According to the Joint Action Committee of UT teachers, a PIL on the state of government schools in UT reveals that 60 out of 115 schools are running without school heads or principals.

News Source (Indian Express)