Goa: Stopped from working from home, teachers to petition governor Satya Pal Malik

PANAJI: Teachers’ associations said on Wednesday that after the state’s failure to implement the Union ministry of human resource development’s (MHRD) July 6 order to allow teachers to work from home, they would now petition governor Satya Pal Malik calling for enforcement of the Centre’s directives.
TOI had earlier reported that the state government was violating MHRD orders by continuing to have teachers report for duty at schools. A day later, education secretary Nila Mohanan said that the state government had received the order dated July 6 only on July 8.
She also said that the directives have been “put up to the state government” for a decision.
However, till July 15, teachers said they had not received any directions in the matter, and were forced to report to work as the state sees a spike in Covid-19 cases.
“It is now time we meet the governor with regards to allowing teachers to work from home according to the guidelines issued by the Centre, in the interest of the education sector,” said president of the Higher Secondary School Teachers Association of Goa (HISTAG), Anant Pissurlekar. “Earlier, I met Mohanan and director of education Vandana Rao requesting them to allow teachers to work from home. But there has been no positive response from the authorities.”
Dattatraya Naik, president of the All-Goa Secondary School Teachers’ Association, said that all associations of teachers in Goa had repeatedly given representations to the directorate of education, education secretary and chief minister Pramod Sawant. However, there has been no response.
“No teacher in Goa has refused to work,” he said. “Our request is only to allow us to work from home for the safety of the teaching community. All teachers are holding online classes using their own devices and their own network packages. No school has provided either network facilities nor devices to teachers. Calling teachers to school only exposes them to a risk to their lives.”
The Goa Headmasters’ Association, as well as Higher Secondary Principal’s Forum, has backed the teachers on the issue.
“We had requested you many times to favour a work from home policy for teachers as the situation is getting worse. For effective online teaching as well as for the safety of teachers and the community as a whole, we request you to consider our request,” said Madhav Kharvy, vice-president, GHA.
Meanwhile, Damodar Panchwadkar, president of the Higher Secondary Principal’s Forum, said that higher secondary school teachers are forced to report to school everyday based on a DoE circular issued on June 23, despite facing many difficulties such as unavailability of transport.
“Students unable to attend online classes shall be taught by other means such as video recordings, worksheets and other offline methods of teaching. In this regard, the circular issued to report on duty for teachers may be withdrawn,” said Panchwadkar.
Headmaster Vithoba Desai said, “Teachers have been taken for granted. They will never forget this humiliation.”