Many Punjab teachers got good ACRs with consistently poor results: Minister

Many government teachers in Punjab got top rankings in their annual confidential reports (ACRs) from senior officials despite their students' consistently poor academic results, a minister said on Monday.

"However, from this academic session onwards, the ACRs of teachers will be written in accordance with the results shown by them," Punjab Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema said.

"The efforts of the education department to identify teachers with bad academic results and to train them, besides formulating a comprehensive policy for teacher training in order to raise educational standards has got a pat from the central government," the minister said.

Punjab's efforts were appreciated by union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, who even advocated implementing these at the national level, Cheema said.

He said the education department held regular meetings with teachers whose students registered poor results.

Cheema said that to improve the quality of teachers, a state-level joint entrance exam for admission to teacher-centric courses like B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) and ETT (elementary teacher training) was a must.

The minister stressed on the importance of induction training during recruitment and training at multiple levels (including for promotions) till retirement. He also strongly advocated advance training for teachers showing good results and basic training for the ones showing poor results.