PSEB Class 10 Results today: Having taught teachers, ‘Cheema Sir’ now worried more about English paper scores

Although teachers tried to blame the poor performance on “weak” students, in an open class by “Cheema sir” at Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) auditorium in Mohali, the teachers could not construct simple sentence or spell basic four letter words. Asked to write answers for two questions- reason for poor results in English and suggestions to improve learning levels- these teachers wrote ‘vacent’ instead of vacant, ‘lake’ for lack and ‘eight’ became eaght.

Most failed to speak with minister when asked to reply in English.

Read: Punjab Board (PSEB) Class 10 results announced today @pseb.ac.in

The state education department has claimed that ‘extra efforts’ was been put in this year to improve results in English.

But the ground level picture says another story. According to education department sources, a majority of the teachers teaching English to classes VI to X (master cadre) in Punjab government schools are those who are specialised in Social Sciences.

“Cheema sir can blame us for poor results but fact is even if they drag us to court, we will be innocent. In our appointment letters it is written that we were recruited to teach Social Sciences not English. Still we are forced to teach English,” said a teacher, who never had English elective as subject in BA.

Till 2012, there were no special recruitment for English-only teachers in master cadre as there were no posts for the same. Those hired for social sciences were asked to teach English.

Read:  Punjab Board Class 12 results 2016: Girls outnumbered boys

A source from State Council of Education and Research Training (SCERT), Punjab told The Indian Express, “In their BEd course, most teachers had a combination of Social Science/ English subjects but a majority had social sciences as their main subject. They may have passed the subject but truth is that they are stronger in social science. They were hired and told to teach English as well. Results are here for us to see.”

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In 2012, the government had started recruiting teachers with an English background as their graduation or post graduation qualification. However, till today, the majority of teachers who teach the subject are still graduates in Social Science.

“I have particularly focused on recruitment of English teachers,” said Cheema. “Now, teachers have to take a test before their appointment for a particular subject. We have even tied up with the British Council since 2012 to train our teachers.”

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