A day after exempting schoolteachers from census duties, the Punjab government has reversed its decision reportedly on the insistence of the federal government. The teachers will now carry out their examination as well as the population count duties along with officers from government departments. The School Education Department (SED) has, however, been directed to make sure no there is no clash of schedules between the census training and the Punjab Examination Commission (PEC) examinations of Class-V and Class-VIII. Schoolteachers across the province will begin training for the upcoming census this week as the provincial government has decided to retract its earlier decision of not using their services. The decision to withdraw the earlier order on the weekend took many teachers by surprise as the previous decision had come directly from the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. In a message to all district education authorities (DEAs) and their respective CEOs, the SED withdrew its instructions issued on February 3 regarding the cancellation of census duty of teachers. “Teachers deputed shall perform their census duty as per instructions issued earlier,” it said.
On February 2, the School Education Department had aired concerns about overlapping duties of examinations and census. The notification directed officials to take appropriate measures to perform both exercises without any default or disturbance. This is a matter of concern that the teachers have to leave their primary duties to tend to the secondary government affairs. While the government has also been criticised earlier for appointing teachers on duties during elections and other events, the exercise of census comes as a bit of surprise as the task has been undertaken traditionally by the armed forces personnel. Furthermore, the planned dates of the census, approximately March/April, do coincide with the examination schedules as this is the time of examinations for most of the public schools. Hence due to the clashes, the education department will need to reschedule the examinations, hence risking the education of many students.
