Punjab Government on Friday notified the much-awaited policy to regularize nearly 9,000 contractual teachers working in the state Education Department.
Notifying the ‘Policy for Welfare of Ad-hoc, Contractual, Temporary Teacher (Nation Builder) and other employees in School Education Department’, the jobs of as many as 8,736 teachers and non-teaching staff will be regularized.
Sharing the “good news” through Twitter, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said that the decision to regularize the teachers was taken by the state government on the occasion of the Teachers’ Day.
Mann, in his tweet in Punjabi, said: “Sharing the good news...The decision to regularize the teachers was taken on Teacher's Day, and the same has been fulfilled now. Notification has been issued for appointing about 9000 contractual teachers…Now, we will work for others…We will now regularize 36,000 as promised…We do what we say.”
A delegation of 8736 teachers, that have been regularized by the Punjab Government recently, on Friday called on the Chief Minister to express their gratitude towards him. The five-member delegation profusely thanked the Chief Minister for accepting their long pending demand of regularization of the service.
They said that while earlier governments had merely done lip service on the issue, the Bhagwant Mann government paved way for their regularization by removing all the obstacles. The delegation said that they will ever remain indebted to Chief Minister for this path breaking initiative.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister handed over the letter of notification to the teachers and held detailed interaction with teachers. He said that the notification for regularization of services of 8736 teachers have been issued and they are part of the state government.
Mann bemoaned that these teachers have been working since long on contractual posts only adding that some of these teachers have been discharging their duty from last 14 years.
The Chief Minister underscored the need that for a bright future of students, the livelihood of teachers must be secured. “Keeping in view this fact only, we have decided to regularize the services of these teachers,” said Mann calling upon the teachers to discharge their duties well for grooming the students for competing with their convent educated peers.
“The State Government has also decided to take the services of teachers for core teaching works only,” he added.
Punjab School Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains, describing the decision as yet another milestone of the AAP-led Punjab Government, said that during the election campaign, the Aam Aadmi Party had promised to the regularize the jobs of contractual employees within six months of formation of the government, but the Mann Government has fulfilled its promise in five and a half months.
Notifying the policy in record time is evidence of the dedication of the AAP Government towards uplifting Punjab, he said.