Teachers will not be forced to participate in data-collection programs or assist with other government schemes, according to education commissioner Dheeraj Kumar. Mr Kumar delivered this assurance to a delegation from Shikshak Bharati, an organisation for teachers, in Pune on September 26.
“One of our grievances,” said Ashok Belsare, state chief of Shikshak Bharati, “was that forcing teachers into administrative responsibilities — like data collection for Aadhaar or updating the state electoral list — was disturbing their educational responsibilities in schools. We have been assured that these would be voluntary tasks for teachers and would not be binding on them. If you burden them with non-academic responsibilities, students are bound to suffer. Though these are meant to be done beyond school classroom hours, teachers have their own family life and it is not possible for them to handle both school and such administrative tasks.”
Maharashtra state education secretary Nand Kumar confirmed that this was a major complaint lodged by a majority of the about 10, 000 teachers on the state teachers' whatsapp communication group, and that the education department had decided “to keep teachers away from a lot of non-education work. We can’t avoid certain works, but at least from the department’s side, we will reduce work put on them.We have already stopped unsolicited training workshops. Also, we are getting them to upload information on our software. Once they finish with uploading students information here, they won't have to bother to update it again and again.”
According to the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, teachers can be engaged in non-educational work for only elections, census and disaster management. But, according to Ujwala Zare, principal of Seth GH High School, the government had “found another way for it. Now, they take our non-teaching staff for work like distribution of election cards. It is as good as compulsory since they insist on a particular number of staff from us and even ask for replacements in case our staff report sick. ”
A municipal teacher said: “They overload us without sanctioning enough staff for us and then expect us to deliver quality education. Half our time goes in uploading every kind of data on the online software. There are times when I end up sitting in front of students completing administrative tasks, which is just so unfair on them. Our students come from poor families. Many go to work or do odd jobs after school. Some return home to cook and take care of younger siblings, since their parents are out at work. The only time our children study is at school, and if we don’t pay attention to them properly at school, there is no way they will learn. ”
