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Ludhiana: 17,000 students directed to attending closing ceremony of Khedan Vatan Punjab Diyan
To exhibit a “show of strength” at the closing ceremony of “Khedan Vatan Punjab Diyan”, where Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann will be the chief guest, over 17,000 students of government, aided and private schools and teachers have been directed to attend the event at Guru Nanak Stadium on Thursday evening
To exhibit a “show of strength” at the closing ceremony of “Khedan Vatan Punjab Diyan”, where Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann will be the chief guest, over 17,000 students of government, aided and private schools and teachers have been directed to attend the event at Guru Nanak Stadium on Thursday evening.
In a letter issued by district education officer Jaswinder Kaur, schools have been told to assign duties to staff to ensure presence of students between Classes 9 and 12 at the event. The letter states, “It should be made sure that there one teacher present on duty for every 20 students.”
As per sources, a total of 9,556 students of government schools, 3,900 of private and 4,023 of government-aided schools in the city and the teachers will be attending the ceremony.
A day before the event on Wednesday, teachers were heard covertly discussing how schools and the district education department are already reeling under acute staff crunch and extra duties take a toll on routine academics.
As the event will be held from 4 pm onwards, it has left the school teachers in a fix. Sukhdarshan Singh, a teacher at a government school, said, “Several students from my school come from remote and far-flung areas. As the event is expected to finish late in the evening, it will put an extra burden on teachers to make sure the students reach home safely.”
“Teachers are regularly assigned duties for government events, which disrupts academics and makes it harder to complete the syllabus,” he added.
Principals and teachers from participating schools were also invited for a meeting at Guru Nanak Stadium on Wednesday to take stock of preparations ahead of the event .
The games under the Punjab Khed Mela were held at block, district and state levels. At the event, total cash prizes of ₹ 6.85 crores will be transferred to over 9,600 players who participated in 30 games held at the state level in different categories.
Players will receive ₹10,000, ₹7,000 and ₹5,000 for the first, second and third positions, respectively. Heavy security arrangements are in place at the stadium.
