Lahore, The teams of Higher Education wing of the Punjab Education Department has resumed monitoring of the colleges to check attendance of teachers in accordance with the timetable.

Various teams visited a number of colleges in Lahore and Sheikuhupura districts in the morning. Additional secretaries Yawar Hussain, Ch Mohammad Akram and deputy secretaries headed the monitoring teams.

It was, however, surprising that students and not the teachers were found absent from the classes. Further interrogation revealed that after the send-up examinations and submission of admission forms to the board and university, students are not keen to attend classes. With the reduction of backlog of work, ranging from 15 days to one month, the board and university received admission forms accordingly. Consequently, the attendance became thin in the classes three months ahead of the closure of institutions for summer vacations. Virtually the academic session which starts from September 15, has been reduced to mere four and a half month in a year. Teachers are unable to cover the prescribed courses during this limited period and the students have to join the academies and tuition centres for completion of their courses.

As such the Education Department is contemplating to chalk out a mechanism to hold the send-up examinations in February and if necessary the admission forms prior to the send-up examinations to be sent provisionally could be subjected to the withdrawal of a candidate on the basis of send-up examination results.

To check the absence of students, it was also considered imperative to remove the maintained attendance register, imposition of fine for consecutive absence and warning to parents that students’ name could be struck off from the college roll for their absence from classes.

The Higher Education Department is also considering appropriate measures to rectify the absence of students, teachers and to run the classes from September 1 to May 30 for a period of nine months at least.