Teachers should not be assigned non-academic work: PM-appointed panel

Teachers should concentrate on teaching only and should not be assigned any non-academic work, a group of secretaries appointed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recommended.

A senior HRD official, privy to the group’s report, said engaging teachers to do activities other than teaching takes a toll on them and affects their primary duty.

“It also impacts the results,” the official told HT, not wishing to be named.

The secretaries, in their report, stressed that teachers, being pivotal to quality education, should concentrate on teaching only.

The HRD ministry will now work on the recommendations of the report.

From conducting cattle census, election duties, pulse polio work to ration card verification, teachers across the country are roped in to do several non-teaching activities.

Apart from government school teachers, even private schools make teachers multi-task—sometimes asking them to do an accountant’s job of collecting fee to cut costs where clerical staff or non-teaching employees are supposed to perform such chores.

Most private schools also task them with the job of accompanying students in school buses. CBSE, in a circular last year, had asked private schools affiliated to it to ensure that their teachers are not saddled with non-teaching duties such as travelling with children in buses and managing canteens.

The Right to Education Act 2009 also allows only three duties—census, disaster and election (only on polling and counting days).

Last year, the Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry had also said it will conduct a survey to assess the adverse impact of non-teaching activities on teaching and teachers.

The National University of Educational and Administration (NUEPA) was asked to undertake the study and submit it by September, sources said. Established by the HRD ministry, NUEPA assists capacity building and research in planning and management of education.

A number of teachers’ associations had taken up the matter in their respective states.