Govt schoolteachers or clerks?
Vivek Gupta
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 22
Over 100 schoolteachers virtually work as clerks in the city’s government schools, courtesy the burden of managing the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) funds on them. Even as a recent letter by the district education office has directed the school heads not to assign any non-teaching job to the teachers, the practice is still rampant.
Chandigarh has 106 government schools and every school has at least one teacher devoted full-time to manage the SSA funds, which include keeping the attendance record of teachers recruited under the SSA society, making their salary cheques, besides other formalities.
The SSA, being the largest literacy programme of the Central government, also has grants for government schools under several academic heads and the whole burden to keep their record lies with these teachers.
Due to this, those assigned the work to manage the SSA funds hardly go to their classes. There are other funds being managed by teachers at the school level, but the management of funds don’t require their daily attention.
An official said there were many schools where school heads had relaxed these teachers from taking any class.
Recently, a few parents gave a written complaint to the DPI office against one such teacher from GSSS-Karsan who was not regular with his classes, he said.
As per information, SK Setia, the then DPI (S) in 2008, also passed an order stating that the SSA is important component of the Education Department and its work should be assigned to the clerks rather schoolteachers. But despite this nothing has changed on ground so far.
Dr Vinod Sharma, president of the Government Teachers Union, said this problem could not be sorted out unless the Education Department would not give additional clerical staff in the government schools.
Arvind Rana, president of the SSA Teachers’ Welfare Association, said taking clerical work from teachers was violation of the Right to Education Act, 2009.
“As per Section 27 of the RTE Act - 2009, no teacher should be deployed for any non-education purpose other than the decennial census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections to the local authority or the state legislatures or Parliament, as the case may be. So, there is an urgent need to put off the burden of responsibilities of the SSA and other petty funds from the teachers," Arvind Rana said.
Senior officials of the department said they were under process to sanction the clerical staff for government schools.
Vivek Gupta
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 22
Over 100 schoolteachers virtually work as clerks in the city’s government schools, courtesy the burden of managing the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) funds on them. Even as a recent letter by the district education office has directed the school heads not to assign any non-teaching job to the teachers, the practice is still rampant.
Chandigarh has 106 government schools and every school has at least one teacher devoted full-time to manage the SSA funds, which include keeping the attendance record of teachers recruited under the SSA society, making their salary cheques, besides other formalities.
The SSA, being the largest literacy programme of the Central government, also has grants for government schools under several academic heads and the whole burden to keep their record lies with these teachers.
Due to this, those assigned the work to manage the SSA funds hardly go to their classes. There are other funds being managed by teachers at the school level, but the management of funds don’t require their daily attention.
An official said there were many schools where school heads had relaxed these teachers from taking any class.
Recently, a few parents gave a written complaint to the DPI office against one such teacher from GSSS-Karsan who was not regular with his classes, he said.
As per information, SK Setia, the then DPI (S) in 2008, also passed an order stating that the SSA is important component of the Education Department and its work should be assigned to the clerks rather schoolteachers. But despite this nothing has changed on ground so far.
Dr Vinod Sharma, president of the Government Teachers Union, said this problem could not be sorted out unless the Education Department would not give additional clerical staff in the government schools.
Arvind Rana, president of the SSA Teachers’ Welfare Association, said taking clerical work from teachers was violation of the Right to Education Act, 2009.
“As per Section 27 of the RTE Act - 2009, no teacher should be deployed for any non-education purpose other than the decennial census, disaster relief duties or duties relating to elections to the local authority or the state legislatures or Parliament, as the case may be. So, there is an urgent need to put off the burden of responsibilities of the SSA and other petty funds from the teachers," Arvind Rana said.
Senior officials of the department said they were under process to sanction the clerical staff for government schools.
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