According to an information received from DGPR on Sunday, Secretary School Education has directed all the Executive District Officers (Education) to designate teachers as head teacher of English Medium Primary Schools who are graduates and also have professional qualification.
The EDO's (Education) have also been directed to complete this exercise before April 30, 2010. Circular issued by Secretary School Education, Muhammad Aslam Kamboh in this regard states that according to National Scheme of Studies, the subjects of Science and Mathematics are to be taught in English.
The subject of English has also been made compulsory from Class-I. The government of the Punjab is implementing these decisions. The above two initiatives require special expertise and command in linguistic skills in the area of listening, speaking, reading and writing.
To achieve these purposes the provincial government revised the academic and professional qualification of primary and elementary school teachers and also revised their grades from BS-7 to BS-9 and BS-9 to BS-14, respectively. Now only these candidates are eligible to apply as primary school teachers who are graduate and also have requisite professional qualification.
The circular further states that it has been decided that in English Medium Primary Schools wherever available, those teachers will be designated as head teacher, who are graduate and also have professional qualification, i.e PTC or higher professional qualification. In case more teachers possess this qualification then the senior among them will be designated as head teacher. The district Education Officers (EE-Male/Female) will complete this exercise through Deputy DEOs before 30 April 2010 however, overall responsibility for implementation will be on EDO (Edu) concerned.
Secretary School Education observed that head teachers along with class In-charge would be responsible for the result of 5 class examination. Similarly the head teacher, along with other teachers, would also be responsible for the enrolment, retention targets and co-curricular activities, the information concludes.