Census: teachers on duty, school work stuck

Census duty being mandatory for government staff and teachers, schools are bound to depute teachers, said an official.

"As many as 27 of 40 teachers of my school have gone for the census training. They will be busy with the actual work for the whole of February. We are somehow managing SSC prelim exams in school, but it will be difficult to complete the syllabus of other classes," said Madhura Kulkarni, principal of NMV Girls' School.

She said, "In the current academic year, teachers have been continuously busy, earlier for preparation of the voter list and now for the census. From this year, teachers have been asked to do continuous and comprehensive evaluation of students as per the Right to Education Act. How can they, if they cannot even take classes?"

At Huzurpaga Girls' High School, around 25 of its 59 teachers are on census duty. "Some teachers have also been called by the SSC board to work as examiner or moderator. It is difficult to complete the syllabus," said principal Shailaja Sontakke.

Dnyaneshwar Bhange of the Maharashtra State Teachers' Council said the organisation had raised the issue with the authorities concerned. "They need to take action, as it will affect students. Moreover, the government is not asking teachers of private unaided English Medium schools to do census duty, which is unfair," he said. When contacted, Praveen Ashtikar, deputy commissioner, PMC, who is the census officer for the corporation, said teachers had to do census work as it was a national duty. "Teachers are expected to teach and also perform census duty. A total of 7,345 government staff, including around 1,800 teachers, are on census duty," he said and added, "The actual work will be from February 9 to 28 during which each government employee is expected to cover 200 houses."

Sources said top census officers were mulling sparing teachers from census duty during examination.

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