With only a few days left before the July 10 deadline for registration of students from Class VIII to XII, educators under the banner of the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) have urged the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) to extend the schedule by at least one month.
Raising serious concerns over the feasibility of meeting the deadline, the DTF said teachers are already overburdened with the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the statewide drug survey and a string of government assignments, leaving little time to complete the registration process.
Under the existing norms, schools that fail to complete registrations within the stipulated deadline face hefty penalties. The DTF argued that such punitive action will be unjust as any delay will result from teachers being diverted to government assignments beyond the control of the school authorities.
The DTF said the registration process has become significantly more demanding this year due to the mandatory uploading of students’ digital birth certificates. Many parents are yet to obtain the documents, leaving schools unable to complete registrations despite repeated follow-ups.
Frequent server outages on the board’s registration portal have further compounded the problem, often forcing teachers to continue the work from home after school hours.
DTF state president Digvijaypal Sharma and state secretary Resham Singh Khemuana said teachers have spent several months juggling non-academic assignments, including answer-sheet evaluation, Census work, departmental training programmes, MC election duties and drug surveys. At present, they are occupied with SIR of electoral rolls.
With a significant number of teachers deployed on these assignments and away from classrooms, completing the registration process within the existing deadline has become virtually impossible, they said.
The organisation also criticised the board’s decision to increase the late registration penalty from Rs 500 to Rs 2,500 per student after July 15. It pointed out that while last year’s registration deadline was July 28, schools have been given a much shorter window this year despite additional documentation requirements, recurring technical glitches and a heavier non-teaching workload.
Seeking immediate intervention, the DTF urged the PSEB to extend the registration deadline by one month and review the penalty provisions. It maintained that teachers should not be made to bear the consequences of government deployment, inadequate timelines and technical failures, adding that an extension will ensure smooth registrations without placing unnecessary pressure on schools or parents.
