5,000 govt school teachers hold protest march against non-academic duties forced on them

“We should be focusing on helping children cope with pandemic-induced academic loss instead of non-academic responsibilities forced on to us by the government,” said Navnath Gend, who heads the primary teachers’ wing of the Shikshak Bharati, a state-wide teachers’ organisation that played an instrumental role in the protest.

“Our leaders — MLCs from teachers’ constituencies — are going to present our issues to the Chief Minister and the education minister. Along with our concerns and suggestions, our request to focus on academic tasks will be conveyed to the government. But if this does not resolve the issue, we will continue protests across Maharashtra,” he added.

The protest march on Sunday was called Shikshak Sanman Rally (teachers’ respect rally). “The idea is to bring back the lost respect given to teachers. Not only are we burdened with non-academic work, we are also subjected to humiliation,” Gend said.

Most of the teachers who participated in the protest were from Aurangabad and Marathwada. Recently, BJP MLA Prashant Bamb had criticised teachers from Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools claiming that over 90 per cent of them are not residents of the village where the school is located and this is harming the quality of education at these schools.

This started a face-off between Bamb and MLCs from teachers’ and graduate constituencies who had come forward in support of teachers. Recently, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, too, in his Teacher’s Day speech promised to reduce the non-academic load shouldered by teachers at government schools.

While there is a long list of administrative tasks at schools, which also include cooking mid-day meals and cleaning toilets, Zilla Parishad teachers are time and again deputed for tasks like census and election work, creating awareness about government policies, helping farmers open bank accounts and participating in disaster management efforts, among others.