LAHORE: The Punjab government will recruit teachers to teach the Punjabi and Seraiki languages as subjects in the schools to promote regional languages as envisaged in the Single National Curriculum (SNC).

Political and social workers, regional parties and language experts had been demanding regional or mother language as medium of instruction in the schools of the province. No previous government had accepted the demand.

The Punjab School Education Department (SED) has included one post each of language subject teachers including Punjabi and Seraiki in the schools. One each local/ regional language teacher would be recruited in the newly-established primary, middle, high and higher secondary schools besides other schools.

The department also sanctioned one Quran and Arabic teacher post in each school from primary to higher secondary level.

Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) office-bearers Rana Liaquat said the government had only sanctioned the regional languages teachers’ posts and not recruited anyone yet. He said the schools were already short of 100,000 teachers and the posts were lying vacant and creating academic and administrative problems in schools.

“Now the number of vacant posts would be increased after sanctioning the language and Quran teachers in every school,” he said. He said the government was not recruiting the teachers on already vacant posts and most of the seats were vacant because the teachers had retired from their services, so how these new posts would be filled.

The SED spokesperson said the department had only approved norms for upgradation and establishing new schools from primary to higher secondary level. He said in future these posts would be created in every school and would also be filled.

Published in Dawn, February 12th, 2022