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Just as the new school year began last week, many public school teachers began receiving orders to join the elective duty. It has led to great unrest among the teachers with many voices being raised against it.
Teachers were asked to act as block level officials (BLO) for elective work. They are expected to spend four hours working in the designated area, after completing school work. Designated areas are generally where their school is located. In addition, the service period is from June to October.
“Right at the start of the school year, asking teachers to contribute to elective duty for such a long time would affect education in public schools,” said Pandurang Kanjar of the Mumbai School Principals Association. “In cities like Mumbai, where you spend many hours traveling, doing overtime for four hours a day is an impossible task, and one task is at risk,” said Kingar.
Uday Nari, a senior teacher at Hansraj Morarji School in Andheri, wrote a letter to Chief Minister Eknath Shinde explaining the teachers’ complaints about the election duty. It is part of our job and we do not deny it. But from June to October is a significantly longer period. “A teacher cannot work both jobs for a long time,” Nari said, adding that this is bound to affect the teaching and learning process in schools.
While teachers are expected to reduce the period of time during which they are expected to work on election duties, Kanjar indicated how the election commission should first consider taking over surplus teachers for electoral duty. “There are many redundant teachers, yet BLO duty orders have been issued for the regular teachers who are currently teaching in the schools.”
Explaining the situation, Shivnath Dharadi of Maharashtra Teachers Union Rajya Shishak Parishad said, “Nearly 500 teachers who were redundant in education department have been voluntarily shifted to election duty as of 2019. Now these teachers are being appointed to civilian schools and orders are being issued. For schools to provide details of all teachers so they can be asked to join the election mission.”
In a sign of serious concerns in public schools about the amount of learning loss children have suffered, the union is calling for teachers not to be required to indulge in non-academic work. Many other teachers’ organizations echoed this request.
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