23 teachers debarred from evaluation

PATIALA, May 22: The Punjabi University authorities, in an unprecedented move, have debarred 23 teachers from evaluation work for two years ...

PATIALA, May 22: The Punjabi University authorities, in an unprecedented move, have debarred 23 teachers from evaluation work for two years on charges of alleged irregularities in marking of answer-sheets.

The decision was taken almost two months back but the affected teachers have still not been informed of the action taken against them. The list includes several teachers with an experience of up to three decades. Some of these teachers have been doing evaluation work for years and no such drastic action had been taken for any such lapses earlier.

According to senior educationists, including college principals, the action is too harsh for such minor lapses like a wrong total or an error in bringing out question-wise marks on the title page of answerbooks. A local college principal, who did not want to be identified for obvious reasons, said, quot;It was a whimsical decision and such frivolous mistakes did not call for such harsh punishment.quot;

Vice-Chancellor Prof Joginder Singh Puar, when contacted, said he would not like to comment on the issue as the decision had been taken by the pro-Vice-Chancellor. Incidentally, the pro-V-C has gone abroad and is expected to be back in about a week8217;s time. Jasbir Singh, controller of examinations, however, said that the matter may be reviewed.

The decision has evoked a sharp reaction among college teachers. The Government College Teachers8217; Association GCTA has even threatened an agitation if the decision was not revoked.

GCTA president Dr P.S. Bhatti and general secretary Prof Bhag Singh said that they had sought an appointment with the V-C to convey their concern over the severe punishment meted out to teachers on flimsy grounds and to demand revoking of the university orders in this regard.

Dr Bhatti told ENS that ordinarily, checking assistants were responsible for ensuring that there were no totalling mistakes and no question was left unmarked. However, this time, the university had conveniently decided to spare the checking assistants and the axe had fallen on the teachers instead. He said such mass-scale debarring of teachers for two years was unprecedented.

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A senior economics teacher in local Government Mohindra College, who has been debarred for two years, told ENS that he had been doing evaluation work for the past 30 years. This time there was some minor mistake of totalling in one of the answer-sheets and he was shocked that such harsh action had been taken against him. Earlier, the university used to deduct a token penalty from the evaluation remuneration for such minor mistakes, he added.

Another affected teacher said that most cases pertained to re-evaluation and re-checking cases. Where even a minor mistake was detected during re-checking, the university authorities decided to take stern action by way of debarring the examiners.

Interestingly, one of the affected teachers is a retired principal of a local government college and is also a member of unfair means committee of the university.

According to unconfirmed reports, the university conduct branch has also debarred some teachers from examination superivisory duty, allegedly on flimsy grounds. Most of the 23 teachers debarred from evaluation work were ignorant of the action taken against them. They said the university should have given them an opportunity to explain their position before taking action against them.