Maharashtra: State teachers’ boycott hampers national literacy census efforts

As the deadline for data submission looms Maharashtra lags behind in the nationwide illiteracy census The State Education Department has warned of potential actions against teachers whorsquove boycotted work or caused delays under the MEPS regulations and other relevant rulesAmidst the heavy workload of numerous nonacademic responsibilities such as Aadhaar registration midday meal audits and outofschool student surveys the illiteracy census under the ambitious lsquoNavbharat Saksharta Abhiyanrsquo New India Literacy Programme NILP by the Central Government faces substantial resistance from 32 teachersrsquo unions within the stateTeachers argue that these nonacademic tasks encroach upon their primary teaching duties Nonetheless the education department insists on their completion citing a government mandate and a national duty that compels teachers to fulfil themThe survey was to be conducted offline by teachers concurrently with the outofschool survey identifying children below 14 years of age living on the streets and providing admission to government schools Teachers were directed to complete this task during nonduty hours without compromising their regular academic workHowever approximately 25 lakh teachers in Maharashtra decided to boycott the census data collection task starting on September 5 as a form of protest The survey which began on August 17 was initially scheduled for completion by August 31 with the extended deadline for data submission set for October 28Also read Mumbai Committee submits report on Goregaon SRA building fireThe target for the state for the last and current fiscal years combined is to educate 1240000 individuals between the ages of 15 and 35 This constitutes around 810 per cent of the over 16300000 illiterate population in the state as per data from the 2011 census However against this target only 26938 illiterate individuals had been registered as of October 21Mahendra Ganpule the state spokesperson for the Maharashtra School Principalsrsquo Association defended their position saying ldquoFirst they burden us with a myriad of nonacademic responsibilities and then they label these tasks as a national duty What does this leave for teaching students It seems that whenever therersquos a demand for a substantial number of educated individuals teachers are called upon be it for election duties or census activities Despite the Right to Education RTE Act clearly stating that teachers should not be involved in nonacademic duties they are consistently laden with such obligationsrdquoSushil Shejule coordinator of Marathi Shala Sansthachalak Sangh said ldquoConsidering that over 5037 of teaching positions in state schools remain unfilled and there has been no teacher recruitment since 2012 educators are already grappling with the weight of their academic responsibilities Now burdening them with nonacademic tasks further exacerbates the challenges arising from these vacancies It is both illogical and counterproductive to assign primary teachers to this survey The government must seriously reconsider this approachrdquoShejule added ldquoThe state government should appoint a private company or NGO for this kind of census work insteadrdquoMahesh Palkar director of education planning and member secretary of Maharashtra State Literacy Mission Authority SMLA justified the governmentrsquos stance He said ldquoWe only need to identify illiterate individuals above the age of 15 and collect their names numbers and addresses We already have the count of illiterate individuals but lack their names and the survey aims to provide us with this essential information Teachers were conducting outofschool surveys for children up to 14 years Our request is solely for them to gather information about uneducated individuals aged 15 and above We are not asking them to venture outside for the survey all they need to do is record a name The form comprises straightforward fields such as gender and cell phone number or merely requires a tick markrdquoPalkar hinted at stern action against those delaying the task saying ldquoIf there is delay neglect or malpractice at any stage of the task we can invoke action as per the provisions of the MEPS act Secondary School Code etc As far as we know teachers have completed almost 80 to 90 per cent of the work which they have not submitted under the pressure of their respective unions We will initiate action against such teachersrdquo32No of teachersrsquo union boycotting the govt orders