Education dept orders withdrawal of bonus salary payments

LAHORE: The Punjab Education Department has ordered the recovery of extra stipend amounts that were mistakenly transferred to thousands of daily wage school teacher interns with their May 2026 payments.

According to a letter issued by the department, stipend bills for May 2026 were processed and payments were sent to the bank accounts of all school teacher interns. The department said the approved schedule allowed temporary daily wage teachers to receive salary only up to May 21, 2026, because summer vacations began on May 22.

The letter stated that, due to a processing mistake, interns were paid a full month’s stipend for May. As a result, the department said, they were overpaid for 10 days covering the period from May 22 to May 31. The issue affected 35,000 daily wage teachers, while the departmental letter referred to 30,000 school interns.

The Education Department has directed all relevant offices to collect the excess amount from the school interns working under their administrative control and deposit the recovered money in the government treasury by June 15.

Many school teacher interns had initially welcomed the additional payment, which appeared in their accounts during the summer break, before being told that the transfer had resulted from a system error.

Daily wage teachers expressed disappointment over the move, saying the overpayment was not their fault, particularly because the department had itself announced early summer holidays from May 22 this year. They also said they had already spent the extra amount on Eid-related expenses and were now concerned about how they would return the money.