Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme (STI) 2026 — Easy Step-by-Step Guide to Apply Online, Eligibility & Merit
This is an independent informational website, not the Punjab Government’s official website. For official information, use the STI portal or contact your District Education Officer.
Every year, thousands of fresh graduates apply for the Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme (STI), also called the School Teacher Internship. Most guides copy the same eligibility list without explaining what actually decides selection: the merit formula, the real timeline, and the mistakes that get applications rejected. This guide covers all three — plus how to estimate your own merit score before you apply, so you know whether you stand a realistic chance in your district.
Quick Answer
The Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme (STI) is a temporary teaching internship run by Punjab’s School Education Department. Fresh graduates teach in government schools for a fixed period, usually 6–12 months, and receive a monthly stipend. Applications are submitted online at the official STI portal (sti.pesrp.edu.pk), and selection is made on academic merit in your home district only. It is not a permanent government job, and it does not automatically convert into one.
What Is the Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme?
Punjab faces regular teacher shortages, and permanent hiring through the PPSC takes years. The Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme fills those gaps quickly. Launched in 2024 under the Chief Minister of Punjab, it offers seats in the thousands per phase as announced — the exact number varies by cycle, so check the current announcement on the official portal. The scheme is managed by District Education Officers (DEOs), and each district advertises its own vacant positions.
This Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme internship is stipend-based, not a salary post: no pension, no medical allowance and no job security beyond the internship period. What it gives you is paid classroom experience, which strengthens any future application for permanent teaching posts.
For a fresh graduate with no teaching experience, that first year in a real classroom — lesson planning, managing 30+ students, dealing with parents and head teachers — is often worth more than the stipend itself. Many former STIs say the experience is what got them through their first PPSC interview, because they could answer practical classroom questions instead of quoting textbook theory.
It also matters what the scheme does not give you. It does not give you a service record, a seniority number, or any preference in permanent hiring beyond the experience itself. It does not guarantee renewal: each phase is a fresh contract, and whether your district offers seats again depends on its vacancies. Go in with your eyes open — treat it as a paid stepping stone, not as a job for life.
Who Can Apply for the Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme? Eligibility
Universal requirements
- Age: 21 to 45 years, for both men and women, as announced in recent cycles.
- Domicile: you must apply in your home district only. Applying outside your domicile district is a common reason for rejection.
- Degree: your degree must be from an HEC-recognised institution. A bogus or unrecognised degree disqualifies you permanently.
- Experience: not required. Fresh graduates are welcome.
The domicile rule deserves emphasis, because it trips up more applicants than any other rule. Your domicile is the district on your domicile certificate — not where you currently live, not where you studied, and not where your parents live now.
If you studied in Lahore but your domicile is from Gujranwala, you apply in Gujranwala. Some applicants try to apply in a big-city district where they think there are more seats; the system checks domicile against the district, and the application is rejected at scrutiny. If your domicile certificate is old, damaged or shows an error, get it corrected well before the application window opens — domicile corrections take time and cannot be rushed during a two-week window.
On degrees: “HEC-recognised” is not a formality. Before you apply, check your institution’s status on the HEC website.
Degrees from institutions that lost recognition, or from unregistered campuses of a recognised university, can fail scrutiny even if the degree itself looks genuine. If you completed your degree through a private affiliated college, make sure the affiliation was active in the year you graduated.
Minimum qualification by school level
| School level | Minimum qualification | Stipend (as announced) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary (Grades 1–5) | FA / FSc, 2nd Division or above | Around Rs. 38,000/month |
| Elementary (Grades 6–8) | BA / BSc, 2nd Division or above | Around Rs. 40,000/month |
| High & Higher Secondary (Grades 9–12) | MA / MSc / BS (Hons) in a relevant subject | Around Rs. 45,000/month |
The stipend figures above are the amounts announced in recent cycles. Stipends can be revised between cycles, so confirm the current figure on the official portal before you apply. Do not plan your finances around a figure from an old advertisement.
Note the “2nd Division or above” condition: it applies to the qualifying degree for that level. A candidate with a first-division master’s degree but a third-division FA can still face problems at the primary level, because the minimum qualification itself carries the division requirement. Check the current advertisement’s exact wording for your level before you assume you qualify.
Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme: How the Merit System Actually Works
This is what decides selection, and most guides skip it. Your marks from Matric through your highest degree are converted into a composite academic score. Higher percentages score higher: a master’s degree with 80% or above earns the top marks, while a bachelor’s degree in the 50–59% range earns the minimum passing score.
If you hold a B.Ed or M.Ed from a recognised university, you get 10 bonus marks added to your academic score — often the difference between selection and rejection in competitive districts.
The interview is worth up to 5 marks and tests basic communication, teaching concepts and attitude. In practice it rarely decides selection — it mainly acts as a tiebreaker when two candidates have nearly identical academic scores.
Three practical consequences of the Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme merit system follow from this. First, your merit is mostly fixed before you apply: it is your academic record, and no amount of interview preparation can rescue a weak academic score.
Second, the B.Ed bonus is the single biggest lever most applicants control — a one-year B.Ed programme before the next cycle can add 10 marks, which in a competitive district is often the entire gap between the last selected candidate and the first rejected one. Third, merit is calculated district by district. The same score that wins a seat in a rural district with few applicants may fall far short in Lahore or Faisalabad, where hundreds of high-scoring graduates compete for the same seats. You cannot choose your district — your domicile chooses it for you — but knowing this helps you set realistic expectations.
How to estimate your own score: to estimate your Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme score, gather your Matric, Intermediate, bachelor’s and (if any) master’s percentage marks, and work out where each falls in the published merit bands for the current cycle.
Add 10 marks if you hold a B.Ed or M.Ed. Then compare your total with the previous cycle’s closing merit in your district, if it was published — DEO offices and local education groups often share it. If you are 5–10 marks below last cycle’s closing merit, your realistic options are to complete a B.Ed before the next cycle, or to apply for a lower school level where competition is thinner.
How to Apply for the Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme: Step by Step
Step 1: Prepare your documents
Get clear, high-resolution scans of your CNIC (front and back), Punjab domicile certificate, Matric certificate, Intermediate/FSc certificate, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree (if applicable), B.Ed/M.Ed certificate (if applicable), four passport-size photographs, and any teaching experience letters.
Blurry or incomplete scans are one of the most common reasons for rejection at scrutiny. Scan in good light, check every page is fully visible with no cut-off edges, and keep the file sizes within the portal’s limits — oversized uploads fail silently on slow connections.
Step 2: Register on the STI portal
Register at sti.pesrp.edu.pk using your CNIC number, verify your mobile number via OTP, and create a strong password.
Fill in your personal and educational details carefully — errors here directly affect your merit calculation. Use a mobile number registered in your own name and keep it active for the whole cycle: merit lists, interview calls and hiring orders all come through SMS and the portal. Save your registration number and password somewhere safe; recovering a lost account during the objection window can cost you the cycle.
Step 3: Apply for specific schools
Select your home district, choose the school level that matches your qualification, pick the specific school and position, and upload your documents. As announced in recent cycles, an application fee of around Rs. 1,000 per school application was charged — confirm the current fee on the portal, as it can change.
Apply to more than one school in your district if the portal allows it: each application is a separate chance, and a school with fewer applicants may have a lower closing merit than a popular one.
Step 4: Follow the timeline
The application window in recent cycles stayed open for about two weeks, followed by a merit list, a short objection window, interviews, a final merit list, and hiring orders. Timelines vary by cycle, so treat the portal’s announcement for the current cycle as the only reliable schedule.
The objection window is short — often only a few days — so check the provisional merit list the day it is published. If your marks were entered wrongly, file the objection immediately with your documents attached; objections filed after the window closes are not entertained.
Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme Common Mistakes That Get Applications Rejected
These are the Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme errors that appear in almost every cycle, and all of them are avoidable:
- Applying outside your domicile district. The most common rejection, and entirely avoidable.
- Blurry or incomplete document scans. A cut-off degree, a dark CNIC photo, a missing back page — any of these can fail scrutiny.
- Wrong school level. Applying for a high-school post with only a BA, or for a primary post without checking the division requirement.
- Ignoring the objection window. Candidates who never check the provisional merit list discover the error only after the final list is published — too late.
- Paying agents. No agent can raise your merit score or guarantee selection. Anyone who promises this is taking your money.
- Using someone else’s mobile number. If the SIM is not in your name, you may miss the SMS that tells you your interview date.
Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme vs CTI: Don’t Apply to the Wrong Programme
| Feature | STI (School Teaching Internship) | CTI (College Teaching Internship) |
|---|---|---|
| Level | Primary to higher secondary schools | Colleges |
| Authority | School Education Department | Higher Education Department |
| Qualification | FA/FSc up to MA/MSc/BS (Hons) | Master’s degree generally required |
| Stipend | As announced per cycle (see table above) | Higher stipends as announced in its own cycles |
| Portal | STI portal (sti.pesrp.edu.pk) | Separate CTI portal |
The Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme covers primary, elementary, high and higher secondary schools under the School Education Department. CTI covers colleges under the Higher Education Department, with higher stipends as announced in its own cycles. They are different programmes with different portals — apply to the one that matches your qualification. Applying to both is fine if you qualify for both, but keep the applications, portals and timelines separate so you do not confuse one deadline with the other.
Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme Illustrative Scenarios
Scenario 1 — the B.Ed advantage. Imagine two candidates in the same district, both with a master’s degree at 72%. One holds a B.Ed, the other does not.
The B.Ed holder starts 10 marks ahead — and in a district where the closing merit moved by only 3 marks last cycle, that gap is decisive. The lesson is not that B.Ed guarantees selection, but that it is the cheapest merit you can buy: one year of study for 10 permanent marks on every future application.
Scenario 2 — the district effect. Imagine a candidate with a solid but not outstanding record — bachelor’s at 62%, master’s at 65%, no B.Ed.
In a high-competition district she misses the cut by several marks. The same record in a neighbouring rural district, where fewer graduates apply, clears the closing merit comfortably. She cannot change her domicile, but the example shows why comparing yourself with applicants from other districts is misleading: only your own district’s merit list matters.
Scenario 3 — the objection that saved a seat. Imagine a candidate whose Matric percentage was entered as 61% instead of 71% — a typing error during registration.
The provisional merit list showed her below the cut. She checked the list on the day it was published, filed an objection with her Matric certificate attached, and the corrected score put her on the final list. Candidates who never checked the provisional list would have lost the seat over a typo.
Real Cases
Successful — Ayesha, 24, Lahore. Academic score 65 points, plus 10 B.Ed bonus points, giving 75 before the interview. She applied in her home district with clear documents and was selected. Rejected — Sana, 30, Faisalabad. Her degree was from an institution that was not HEC-recognised, so her application failed at scrutiny regardless of her marks.
Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme Checklist Before You Apply
Confirm your Punjab domicile is current, your age is between 21 and 45, and your degree is from an HEC-recognised university. Check that your qualification matches the school level and calculate your approximate academic score.
Prepare high-quality scans of all documents, confirm the current fee and stipend on the portal, and apply only in your home district before the deadline. Check the provisional merit list on the day it is published and file any objection within the window. Keep your registration number safe.
Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme: What to Do Right Now
If you qualify, prepare your document scans and calculate your approximate merit score today. If your merit feels weak, look into the one-year B.Ed programme before the next cycle opens. If teaching is one of several options you are considering, also look at other public-sector openings — see the BISP Internship 2026 guide and the BISP Jobs 2026 guide for other government internship and vacancy routes. Do not pay any agent who promises guaranteed selection.
Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme Frequently Asked Questions
Can I apply in a district where I live if my domicile is different? No — apply only in your domicile district, as announced in the scheme rules.
Is the STI stipend the same every year? No — stipends are announced per cycle and can change. Confirm the current figure on the official portal.
Is STI a permanent government job? No. It is a temporary internship with no pension, no benefits, and no automatic conversion to a permanent post.
Does a B.Ed really make a difference? Yes — as announced, it adds 10 bonus marks to your academic score, which is often the difference between selection and rejection in competitive districts.
What if I miss the objection window? Objections filed after the window closes are generally not entertained, so check the provisional merit list on the day it is published.
Can I apply for both the Punjab Intern Teachers Scheme and CTI? Yes, if you meet the qualification for each — but they are separate programmes with separate portals and timelines, so track them separately.
This guide is independent information, not an official Punjab Government publication. Verify current stipends, fees, seats and dates at sti.pesrp.edu.pk or with your District Education Officer before applying.
