Teaching staff from civic and private aided schools had been assigned election-related work before the commencement of Lok Sabha polls
Pune news, Diwali vacations, Lok Sabha polls, election duty, civic schools, private-aided schools
While most children must have got their gifts before or during Diwali, over one lakh students of the PMC-run and private aided schools will be getting theirs after the festival.
Teachers from municipal schools were given the duty of distributing voter registration forms, among others. File pic
As Lok Sabha and Assembly elections are finally over, as many as 1,250 teachers who were deputed on various poll duties will be resuming teaching duties post-Diwali.
“We have 2,500 teachers, working in 306 schools in the city. But prior to Lok Sabha polls, about 50 per cent of the teaching staff was assigned election-related work such as registration of new voters, distribution of voting slips, etc. Now that even the Assembly elections are over, all these teachers will be back in schools after Diwali,” Shubhangi Chavan, assistant education head of PMC education board said.
She added that since all the schools were short-staffed it affected the completion of the syllabus. “But now, with teachers back in school, the next semester will remain unaffected,” Chavan said.
S P Jadhav, principal of Balveer Shirishkumar Vidyalaya, said, “A total of 16 staff members were assigned election duties for over a fortnight. Fortunately, it was the non-teaching staff. This helped us ensure that the academics weren’t hampered.”
Authorities, however, at Bhaurao Patil Vidya Niketan School in Yerawda had a different story to tell. They said the school has been functioning with just three teachers with the other three working as Block Level Officials (BLO) for over a year.
“It is extremely difficult to run the school with such a small staff. Though EC cleared that teachers should not be summoned during school hours, the reality is that most of election work done by them was during school hours. It was done to finish the work on time,” school principal Veer Kesu said.
Suhas Deshpande, teacher from Ramanbaug High School, who has been working as a BLO for the last three years, said, “I have received temporary relieving orders. It stated that in future, I’ll have to resume election duty whenever asked to do so. Handling academic and election duty is a hectic task. EC should consider hiring separate staff that can work as BLOs.”
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2,500 No of teacher working in civic and private aided schools
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