HYDERABAD: It has been a hectic few months for government teachers in the State. First there were the highly-charged Assembly elections, held in December 2018. Then there were gram panchayat elections in January. In April, there were the high-profile Lok Sabha elections. Now, in a few weeks, the State will elect MPTC and ZPTC chairmen.
Tired and frustrated, and afraid of having to work during summer vacations, the teachers are mulling submitting mass leave applications to district education officers (DEO). They say they are fatigued with the non-stop onslaught of elections and want to recuperate. Even if there were no elections, they would have to cut their vacation short anyway as they will be asked to conduct ‘Badi Bata’ programmes in villages across the State, campaigning for students to enrol into schools.
Teachers, like any government employees, were pressed into election duty much before polling duty. Over 1.2 lakh government school teachers were being trained and deployed for the elections to the State Assembly, Gram Panchayat elections (held in three phases) and Lok Sabha elections.
Sources say that DEOs around the State are receiving many applications from government school teachers, seeking exemption from having to work in upcoming elections. However, officials concerned are rejecting these applications.
The teachers are faced with one more challenge in the form of spot valuation of Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations, scheduled between April 15 and April 25. The school education department has prescribed guidelines to all DEOs for assigning teachers to this job.
Speaking to Express, one teacher who did not want to be named, said: “Election duties have been quite stressful for us (government teachers). We haven’t been able to spend time with our families. We were looking forwards to summer vacations but the State government is now planning to release notification for ZPTC and MPTC elections. I had applied for leaves, seeking exemption from poll duty. But authorities rejected my application when they heard this news.”
When contacted, Progressive Recognized Teacher’s Union (PRTU) State ex-president P Sarotham Reddy noted that teachers were not getting any vacation this year. “The school education department is putting teachers on duty during holidays as well. We demand the authorities to allocate Earned Leaves(EL) to them”, said Reddy. Meanwhile, Medchal District Education Officer I Vijay Kumari said election duties are mandatory for government teachers.
Kumari confirmed that teachers have been applying for exemption.
“We are not approving any of the teacher’s leave applications. Teachers who are working in the SSC spot valuations alone can avail exemption for two days from election training,” said Kumari.