In Punjab, 80,278 of the 3,78,628 Class-10 government school students flunked English exam this year. Reason: they were taught by those who themselves struggle to write a simple correct sentence in the language.
These were a few sentences written by nearly 200 English teachers when questioned on reasons behind the students' poor performance and suggestions to improve them.
Punjab Education Minister Daljeet Singh Cheema, who had summoned the teachers whose students performed the worst, was shocked. "You don't even know correct spellings of several words then how can we expect students to perform well. All of you have failed in my class," Cheema said.
The minister was agitated to the extent that he asked his staff to display the teachers' errors on a projector. A teacher from Ropar spelled vacant as "vacent" and should as "shoud", while another from Fazilka wrote lack of interest as "lake of interest".
