LAHORE: The Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) on Sunday demanded the government extend the deadline for registration of birth certificates (B-form) of schoolchildren and condemned threats of action by the authorities against its members.

A PTU central body meeting, chaired by its president Chaudhry Sarfraz, was held at a hotel here on Sunday.

In a statement, the union said the parents of millions of students did not submit B-form in schools and National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) also did not have a capacity to make millions of forms on a short notice. They said they could not complete the process of submission of the B-form till Nov 30 (today) and the date should be extended for six months.

The teachers said many parents could not bear the expense of B-forms and they also had stopped responding to the calls of the teachers to submit the forms of their children in schools. They termed making only the teachers responsible for submission of B-forms injustice and said they would not remain silent over this injustice.

They also pointed out that all the educational activities in the schools were suspended after the second wave of Covid-19 but the teachers were being forced to be present in dengue activity.

They demanded Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, school education minister Murad Raas and school education department secretary to extend the submission of B-form and suspend dengue-related duties.

Sajjad Akbar Kazmi, Rana Liaqat, Rana Anwar, Rana Altaf Husain, Imtiaz Tahir, Saeed Namdar, Afzal Kiyani, Rehmatullah Quraishi, Abid Dogar, Sajid Chishti, Mian Arshad, Rana Khalid, Mirza Tariq, Tahir Islam, Hafiz Nazir Gujjar and Ghafar Awan were present in the meeting.

Published in Dawn, November 30th, 2020