FARIDKOT- Ten years after the recruitment of over 6,500 teachers in government schools, the Education Department has started the verification of their educational qualifications.
The department has warned that besides sacking teachers with dubious degrees, a criminal case would be registered against them and the salary paid to them date to date would be recovered if their degrees were found to be invalid.
There was no verification of the qualification of these teachers as they were working under Zila Parishads and municipal councils since November 2006. However, the services of these teachers were brought under the state Education Department in May last year. The teachers had held a protracted agitation in the state to bring their services under the department.
The department is trying to identify all those teachers who got their degrees under distance education mode. As per the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, a university can operate only within the territorial jurisdiction and a private university cannot affiliate with institutions outside its state for conducting classes and examinations. Some time ago, many private universities which had franchisees in Punjab, conducted examinations and gave degrees — which is against the UGC and Distance Education Council (DEC) guidelines.
Sources in the department said there were many teachers of Muktsar district who got the job on the basis of their dubious certificates. But there was no verification of these degrees in the last 10 years.
