No poll duty for govt teachers during school hours

LUDHIANA : Government teachers who have been crying foul over being posted for election duties during school timings can now be asked to do their duties after the hours.

In his letter to all the deputy commissioners of Punjab, the Director General of School Education (DGSE) Krishan Kumar said that they should not call the teachers for the census counting or for election duties during school timings. The copy of the Right to Education Act has also been sent to the DCs as per the order of the Supreme Court.

In a case in the Supreme Court between the Election Commission and Saint Mary and others, the apex court had announced on September 13, 2010, that the school teachers would not do any other job except teaching in school timings. If some non-teaching job had to be given to the teachers, it should be done either before or after the school timings.

Instructing all the principals of the government schools not to send teachers for any duty, the DGSE told the DCs that for the census duty the teachers should not be called for the whole day so they should not leave the school premises citing these duties. Crying foul over the development, a government school teacher said that they were the soft targets for the government machinery as whenever they felt they imposed the duties on

them. \"Even the ruling political parties use the teachers for their research works in the name of the duty by instructing the district administration,\" he said.

Under the Right to Education Act, the human resources development ministry had also cleared that teachers should not be appointed for any duty other than census, election and natural calamities. The HRD ministry had issued the guidelines under Section 35(1) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 regarding the implementation of the provisions of Section 27. The Section 24 and 27 clearly state that it was not to enumerate the non-educational duties of a schoolteacher but to emphasize that teachers should not be deployed for non-educational duties other than those which are considered to be essential in the national interest.
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