Maharashtra is falling behind in the countrywide illiteracy census just as the deadline for data submission approaches. In accordance with the Maharashtra Employees Of Private/Public Schools (MEPS) regulations and other pertinent laws, the State Education Department has issued a warning about possible sanctions against teachers who have abstained from work or caused delays.
Teachers apart from teaching have a huge workload of non-academic duties like Aadhar registration, audits of mid-day meals, and out-of-school student surveys. The ambitious "Navbharat Saksharta Abhiyan" (New India Literacy Programme - NILP) by the Central Government faces substantial resistance from 32 state-wide teachers' unions in the midst of this non-academic workload when it comes to the illiteracy census.
Teachers contend that these extracurricular activities infringe upon their main responsibilities as educators. However, the State Education Department demands that the work should be completed, citing a national obligation and a government mandate that forces educators to comply.
The out-of-school student surveys were conducted offline by the teachers. The survey was done to generate a number of children below the age of 14 living on the streets and to get them admitted to government schools.
Teachers were asked to complete this task during the non-duty hours, without hampering their teaching schedules and regular academic work.
But as a form of protest, about 2.5 lakh teachers in Maharashtra chose to abstain from participating in the census data collection process, beginning on September 5. The survey started on August 17 and was originally supposed to be concluded by August 31. However, there was an extension for data submission, and the deadline was extended to October 28.
In the current fiscal year, the state targets to educate 12,40,000 people belonging to the age group of 15 to 35. This consists of around 10% of the state’s illiterate population, as per the data from the 2011 census. Against this target, till October 21, only 26,938 illiterate people have been registered.
The State Spokesperson For The Maharashtra School Principals’ Association, Mahendra Ganpule, defended their position. He said that after assigning teachers a plethora of non-academic duties, they call these obligations "national duties"? What does this leave for teaching students? Teachers seem to be called upon for election work or census-related tasks whenever there is a need for a sizable number of educated people. Even though the Right to Education (RTE) Act makes it very clear that teachers shouldn't perform non-academic tasks, they are frequently burdened with them.
Coordinator of Marathi Shala Sansthachalak Sangh, Sushil Shejule, spoke about the issues being faced by educators at work. He said that Teachers already struggle with the weight of their academic responsibilities given that more than 50% of teaching positions in state schools are unfilled and that there hasn't been a teacher recruitment drive since 2012. Now, adding to the difficulties brought on by these openings is assigning them non-academic work. It is illogical and ineffective to assign primary teachers to this survey. This strategy needs to be carefully reconsidered by the government.
Sushil further added that the government should hire a private company or any NGO for this job.
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