Politics seems to have forced education into the list of no-so-important matters in the district and the voters’ registration drive, which began on October 1 and concluded yesterday, put students of several government-aided schools on the losing end. The decision of the Election Commission of India to appoint schoolteachers to distribute forms for the voter’s registration drive has taken a toll on academic activities at schools in the district.

According to figures, around 1,000 teachers from all government-aided school in the city were deployed for the registration drive, contrary to what the District Deputy Election Officer claims. The part that defies logic is that the classrooms doubled up as centres for the general public to collect forms and besides distributing forms and answering queries and checking whether all the necessary documents were being attached with forms that were being submitted, the teachers had to conduct classes simultaneously.