The Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab has sent question papers meant for Class 5 students to government primary school teachers, containing a state government advertisement on hiking social security pension, below which are questions related to it, The Indian Express reported on Monday, 13 September.
Question no. 2 of the paper contains an advertisement with a picture, saying, “The Punjab government has doubled the social security pension for old age, widows and destitute women, orphan children and disabled,” the daily reported.
The ad is followed by multiple-choice questions, such as: “The above advertisement is regarding what?” and “When was the hiked social security pension distribution started?”
The practice Punjabi question paper was sent to the teachers on WhatsApp groups of the education department on Sunday. The teachers have been directed to distribute the same to students to prepare them for the National Achievement Survey.
The government had directed the teachers to give the printouts of the question paper to students on Monday. Classes 3 to 5 were reported to be sitting for their mid-term exams on Monday.
“To prepare children for National Achievement Survey, which is in November, these NAS practice papers of 40 marks each will be distributed for mid-terms,” said a teacher, as per The Indian Express.
Manmeet Grewal, assistant project coordinator, Padho Punjab, Ludhiana district, however, said, “These question papers are prepared at the head office in Mohali, not at the district level. We sent them to teachers as received.”
Meanwhile, a senior teacher from the Democratic Teachers Front (DTF) said the advertisement was just a “publicity measure”.
“Elections are here, and now Punjab government is publicising its schemes via question papers of primary school children. Question papers of schoolchildren are not meant for poll campaigning. Primary kids don’t even know the meaning of social security pension,” the teacher said.
(With inputs from The Indian Express.)
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