Teachers won’t be roped in for other work: Haryana minister Kanwar Pal Gujjar

GURGAON: The minister of school education in Haryana, Kanwar Pal Gujjar, announced on Thursday that the teachers will not be handed over any non-teaching work at schools or outside.
He said the government will recruit class 4 non-teaching staff through the Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam Limited for schools that have a strength of more than 100 students to ensure teachers are not overloaded with non-academic jobs.
The move comes after unabating demands and strikes from the teachers in the state.
Nevertheless, the teachers are sceptical about it. They said there were no clerks at schools and the government is still “discussing the matter with senior officials”. They have asked for a circular stating the decision, since they are still engaged in collecting data for Parivar Pehchan Patra.
“These are vague promises from the government and we do not trust them. We are still engaged in data collection and updation for Family Identity Cards (Parivar Pehchan Patra or PPP). We need a notification from the department that states the said announcement and relieves us from non-academic duties. They are still discussing the matter and we don’t know how long that will take,” said the head of the Haryana School Lecturers’ Association, Satpal Sindhu.
The teachers have been asking to be relieved of non-teaching duties for a long time now. Last year in December, the teachers sent a memorandum to chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar to remove them from non-academic duties.
Sandhu added that teachers doing non-teaching jobs were common, but the government forced them to do non-academic work as well, like providing mid-day meals to children at homes during Covid-19, collecting data for PPP, working at polling booths and even being sent for wheat procurement at times.