LAHORE: The Punjab School Education Department (SED) on Saturday halted the process of transfer and posting of schoolteachers in the province owing to the ongoing preparations for the general elections.

The schoolteachers, whose applications were under process, will have to wait for their transfer and posting.

The chief executive officers (CEOs) of all district education authorities (DEAs) have been instructed to not issue any transfer orders as the teachers were being deputed for election duty training. However, the process of scrutiny for the transfers would be continued by the department.

The CEOs were directed to stop transfer and posting of teachers due to [election] training because the Election Commission of Pakistan had shown serious concern over mass transfers of teachers. The CEOs were directed to complete the process of scrutiny of [transfer] applications before issuance of transfer orders. However, no transfer order shall be issued till further instructions of the department.

SED Secretary Dr Allah Bakhsh Malik told Dawn that the transfer and posting was halted on the direction of ECP because of the undergoing training programme.

He said they would start transfer and posting again after the training.

As many as 50,000 teachers would have to wait for the transfer.

Punjab Teachers’ Union (PTU) General Secretary Rana Liaquat Ali said after around one and a half years, the teachers had been given a chance to get themselves transferred as the general ban had been lifted. “Because of this decision, thousands of teachers will have to wait. Female teachers will be the most affected, as many who have married during the period of the transfer ban, will have to wait further,” he added.

He said there were around 7,000 teachers who had applied for inter-district transfers.

Earlier, the SED had postponed its School Leadership Development Programme under the Quaid-i-Azam Academy for Educational Development (QAED) because of the election-related training of teachers in Punjab. The training was overlapping with the orientation sessions by the ECP for assistant presiding officers and polling officers from April 23 to May 12.

A notification in this regard reads, “Keeping in view the training by the ECP, the training schedule issued by the SED for school leadership development programme is hereby withdrawn. The new schedule will be communicated subsequently.”

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2018