TOBA TEK SINGH: The teachers of government schools in the district have been deprived of their winter holidays without any overtime allowance for computerising the data of a survey conducted under a Unicef programme aimed at ensuring enrollment of all children of school-going age.

The survey was conducted by the teachers of government schools in the district a few months ago under the Unicef’s universal primary and secondary education programme.

To get the data collected through the survey computerized, the education executive district officer (EDO) has cancelled the winter holidays of the teachers of selected schools.

An official source told Dawn on Sunday that although winter holidays would start from December 24, the teachers attached to 35 data centres (each centre contained data of schools located in two to three union councils) in the district will start working from Dec 22 (today). The job is expected to be finished till Dec 30.

The source said the schoolteachers engaged for data entry will have to reach these centres (set up in high schools) on their own in the cold and foggy weather, scarifying their holidays, without any overtime allowance.

He said the teachers who already had a meager income would have to pay the transport cost from their pocket to do the extra official wok that was not fair.

The source said given the importance of Unicef programme District Coordination Officer Dr Farah Masood had especially written to Fesco chief executive and Jhang superintending engineer and Toba executive engineer to avoid power outages in the 35 high schools where computer laboratories would be used for data entry from Dec 22 to Dec 30.

The computer software prepared by Unicef for data entry pertaining to enrolment of children had been supplied to all centres.