The quarantine facility at Narela. The teachers perform administrative tasks and field questions on food, sanitation from inmates at the centres.
Chandra Shekhar Meena misses teaching his students. A computer science teacher at a Delhi government school in Jahangirpuri, he has been travelling on deserted roads on his motorcycle for an hour every day to report for duty at a quarantine facility in Narela since April 1.
“I live in Keshavpuram, so the journey to the centre is quite long. At the beginning it was a little alarming to be posted here, in such close proximity to those in quarantine. I’m getting used to it but I still carry my own food. It’s a duty that I’ve been called to do, which is fine, but I’m not getting time for my students. I live alone so once I go home, I have to cook and clean. When I get a break, I want to frame assignments for my students,” said Meena. His job at the centre involves fielding questions on sanitation, maintenance, food and other requirements from inmates at the centre and convey these to the relevant service person. His team consists of four other teachers and civil defence members who service two towers in the facility for eight hours each day.
He is among hundreds of Delhi government school teachers who have been deployed to perform administrative functions at quarantine centres in different parts of the city. As the capital scales up efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic and provide for people’s needs during the lockdown, government school teachers are among those at the frontline, working in numerous capacities.
Apart from those posted at quarantine centres, teachers and heads of schools are overseeing distribution of food rations at 421 schools and cooked meals at around 350 schools designated as ‘hunger relief centres’. Teachers are also posted in shifts at the schools functioning as night shelters, which, as one teacher remarked, is “mostly to make sure no one tries to escape”.
Like Meena, another teacher from a school in Northeast Delhi walks to the Delhi Police Residential Complex in Mandoli, which is now a quarantine centre, every day to man the reception. His duties include entering details of new inmates, allotting them rooms and coordinating movement of healthcare workers.“I teach class XII students geography. Now their online classes have started and there are other teachers who are supervising them so I trust they will be fine. This is our duty in an emergency situation but our primary duty is still our students,” he said. Meanwhile, in schools designated as hunger relief centres, heads of schools manage the distribution of both lunch and dinner.
“As the lockdown continues, the numbers coming to the schools to collect food increases every day. We are getting food for 500 people. Between 200-250 people come to the centre and they carry some food for people back home. Schools have prepared rosters of teachers to carry out this duty but as of now, I am doing it just with the estate manager to reduce the movement of teachers,” said the head of a school in East Delhi. However, the teacher of another school who has been on food distribution duty at her school has another concern.
“I haven’t seen any of my own students come to collect meals here. I suppose there might be some discomfort about coming to school for this so perhaps their families are going to some other centre nearby if they need the food,” she said.