CHAKWAL: The Chakwal education department is all set to promote nearly 400 teachers in the district, officials told Dawn on Sunday.

The promotion process will begin on March 29.

“In the category of in-service promotions, as many as 50 elementary school teachers serving in grade 14 would be promoted to grade 16, while almost the same number of primary school teachers would be promoted to grade 14 from grade 9, [and] as many as 300 teachers would get upward mobility,” Executive District Officer Education Dr Ghulam Murtaza Anjum said.

He added that the promotions would be given based on merit, and those who are the most senior and have the highest education qualifications would be considered for promotions.

Through these in-service promotions, the seats that are vacant due to the retirements or deaths of teachers will be filled. Upward mobility in a method in which the cadre of a teacher remains the same but the teacher gets promoted to the next grade.

The Teachers Union district president, Qazi Saqib Naveed, welcomed the promotions but expressed reservations regarding promotions in the upward mobility category.

“More than 1,200 teachers deserve to get upward mobility which few are going to be given,” he said.

He added that the Chakwal education department has not regularised teachers recruited in 2011 and 2012. “The Punjab government issued an order on Aug 7, 2015, directing the education departments of all the districts to regularise teachers recruited in 2011 and 2012 with immediate effect.

“But in Chakwal the teachers were regularised in February 2016 instead of in August of last year so seven months of their service was wasted,” he said. He added that a writ petition has been filed in this regard before the Lahore High Court.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2016