When more than 80,000 students of Class 10 across government schools failed in English in the Punjab School Education Board examination (PSEB), the state’s Education minister Daljit Singh Cheema decided to get to the root of the problem.

When more than 80,000 students of Class 10 across government schools failed in English in the Punjab School Education Board examination (PSEB), the state’s Education minister Daljit Singh Cheema decided to get to the root of the problem. What he discovered left him reeling in disbelief. Cheema found out that the problem started with the teachers. Not one of the 220 English teachers, asked to explain the poor performance of their students, could write a single sentence in the language correctly.

Sample these: ‘Leak of interest’; ‘English are international languages so no interest’; ‘Staff of our school were vacant…our school has situated remote area’; ‘Student mental level are not well in these syllabus’; ‘It class was very weak from 6 by chance’; ‘teachers under pressure of other work, so no time study’.

These answers were written and given by government school teachers in reply to the minister who asked why 80,000 students across the state had failed in English. The teachers were also asked to give suggestions for improvement.

Exasperated, the minister asked the teachers to speak in English. The result, again, was an absolute an eye-opener for him.

Citing the reason for the poor Class 10 result, some of the teachers said it was 'leak interest' and 'parents should involved by PTM' — whatever that means. The shocked minister told one of the teachers, "If your English teacher had been alive today I would have asked him what kind of language did he teach you."

It is no secret that the quality of education in government schools in India is abysmal. But how abysmal it is in Punjab is anyone’s guess from such incidents. The grammatically disastrous and poorly drafted answers of the teachers leave no one in doubt why students are flunking the English language exams. Cheema has now ordered special training for the government school teachers of Punjab.

“Those teachers with weaknesses of their own will be given two months training. The government can talk to the British Council and the Cambridge for help. I don’t want to punish the teachers. I want them to improve. If they don’t teach properly what will be the future of these students. But even after their training their performance does not improve, it will reflect in their annual confidential reports (ACRs),” he said.

It is not that the teachers did not have any idea for improvement. Some of the suggestions such as language teachers for students from Class 1 itself and ‘keeping teachers away from non-teaching work such as participating in preparing the voters’ list, election duties and the Mid-day Meal activities’ made sense.