Babus keep close tab; teachers irked with surprise inspections

Principals, teachers complain that show-cause notices are being issued over ‘trivial’ issues.
Image used for representational purpose only. (Express Illustrations)
Image used for representational purpose only. (Express Illustrations)

NEW DELHI: Officials of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) have turned ‘headmaster’ these days, tightening the screw on principals and teachers of the schools run by the civic body. Ever since the MCD has been re-unified, the corporation officials have been doing surprise inspections on a daily basis and issuing show-cause notices to teachers and principals for a host of reasons — from being absent to deficient performance of their students.

One principal was show-caused for not being present in the school during the evening shift. At another school, a show-cause notice was issued to a teacher as only a handful of children were present in her class. Over the past two weeks, dozens of teachers have received notices.

The action is causing a lot of resentment. The principal of a school in East Delhi complained that field officers and senior officers of the MCD, including the deputy commissioner, started regular inspections only after MCD’s unification and were issuing show-cause notices even for irrelevant matters.

Countering the criticism, Vikas Tripathi, who has been given the charge of Director, Education, in the newly unified MCD, said, “Inspections in the schools have been a regular practice and if the complaint is that show-cause notices are being issued daily, the purpose is to know the reason why it’s happening.”

Justifying the action further, Tripathi said, “We are running this programme called Mission Buniyaad in schools with the aim to fill the educational gaps created due to the Covid lockdown when schoolchildren were forced to study at home for two years.”

One of the teachers taking a Mission Buniyaad class, however, alleged high-handedness in issuing notices.
“I had divided a group of children on the basis of the level they need to start with. On a particular day, when I had four-five children in my ‘beginners’ class, an official came for inspection and issued a show-cause notice to me for only a handful of children attending the class. There are no set guidelines on how we have to teach these children and how we decide if a child needs to start from scratch,” a teacher said.

Bhupinder Singh Bhalla takes charge as new chairman of NDMC
New Delhi: Bhupinder Singh Bhalla has been appointed as the new chairman of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), according to an official order issued on Friday. He succeeds Dharmendra, a 1989-batch officer, as the civic body chairman. Bhalla, a 1990-batch IAS officer, is currently the additional chief secretary of Delhi. An alumnus of IIM Bangalore, Bhalla also has an MBA degree from the University of Georgia. He has previously been posted in the Department of Commerce and the Chandigarh Housing Board besides serving as Goa’s Chief Electoral Officer.

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