Close on the heels of the Union Government’s announcement that employees would not receive their annual increment if their performance was not upto the mark, the Jagtial district administration has warned the teaching community of deducting their annual increment if they fail to achieve 100 per cent result in the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examination in government schools.
In this regard, District Collector A. Sharath had conducted a meeting with the headmasters of all the government high schools, including Zilla Parishad high schools, recently. At the meeting, he had also instructed the District Educational Officer, Venkateshwarlu, to collect undertaking letters from all the headmasters and subject teachers.
Surprisingly, there was a good response to the call given by the Collector and all the headmasters and teachers gave their undertaking to forgo their annual increment if they fail to achieve 100 per cent results in the SSC examination. Initially, a majority of teachers pooh-poohed the decision, but later they supported it and submitted the undertaking letters to the concerned headmasters and MEOs. Chandrashekhar Reddy, school assistant, Zilla Parishad High School, Nemalikonda, said: “We cannot oppose the Collector’s decision. We are trying our best to improve the result by conducting special classes and remedial classes for poor and average students,” he said.
A ZPHS headmaster in Gollapalli mandal opined that it was difficult to achieve 100 per cent result in government schools as students come from a poor background. “If we insist on more study hours, the students will abstain from classes which will affect the overall result,” he complained and feared that there was every possibility of teachers, who would be deployed as invigilators during the SSC examination, assisting students to ensure cent per cent pass percentage.
However, DEO Venkateshwaralu clarified that only oral instructions were given to the teachers and they supported the decision by submitting their undertaking letters. “It’s not harassment of teachers, but a psychological game only to improve the result in the SSC,” he maintained.
