RAWALPINDI: District education monitoring teams will start working from Monday to check the quality of education in government schools.

The Punjab government has imposed an education emergency in the province for three months to improve the quality of education in schools.

In every district, the assistant commissioner concerned will lead a team to inspect the schools and prepare a report against teachers who failed to improve results.The teachers will be fined or demoted if their students failed to obtain good marks in the annual examinations.

However, the move has created an unrest among the teachers who said that district and provincial monitoring teams were already visiting schools every month.

Punjab Teachers Association District President Chaudhry Saghir Alam told Dawn that the teachers were already facing problems as they had to do double work.

`Their primary duty is to impart educa-tion to students but the government also use them in anti-polio, anti-dengue drives and other campaigns. Now they have to perform duties in the census as lists of teachers have already been prepared for this purpose.

He said the education department officials got promotions but the teachers` basic pay scales were not upgraded.

`Intermediate-passed clerks are working in basic pay scale 11 while teachers having master`s or BA and BEd degrees are in BPS9, which is a discrimination.He said with the imposition of the emergency in the department, the district administration officials would be interfering in the work of the teachers, adding that teachers would go on a strike against their maltreatment by the provincial government.

A senior of ficial of the education department said the assistant commissioners would present reports to the deputy commissioner and the head of the education authority would decide the fate of teachers. Aamir Yasin