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Tamil Nadu government school teachers say they struggle to find time to plan lessons and teach students amidst all the chores with which various government departments burden them. Some of these tasks include election duty, data entry and administrative work. Several schools lack clerks or computer operators, adding to the number of duties that the State’s 2.16 lakh government school teachers must juggle while educating a whopping 54.72 lakh students! Too many to handle Public perception of government teachers tends to be one of well-paid staff with summer holidays, prone to absenteeism. The reality, however, is hardly cushy. Let’s take one of the government schools in Chennai. It has a strength of about 700 students at the primary level alone. These students were managed by just nine teachers in the last week on November. This means each teacher handled over 70 students till 4 pm each day that week. Is the school short-staffed? Not really. The school has 20 teachers at the primary level, but 10 had been sent to attend a training programme organised by the central government, and one had taken leave. The remaining teachers barely got through their additional duties, let alone teach that week.

The situation is the same at schools across the State. Venkatesan Kumar (name changed), headmaster of an elementary school in Tiruvannamalai with over 100 students, told Express what his day was like last Tuesday. After waking up at 7 am, Venkatesan helped with household work and left for a village 30km from his house for election duty. He was stationed at the camp till 5 pm and received two nominations for the local body elections. “After that we had to submit the nominations to a Block Level Officer. I reached home by 6 pm,” he said. As a result, he was unable to teach classes or do any of his administrative work at school. His absence also affected the other teachers on duty. Of the three teachers at the school, one was on maternity break. The other two had to manage students from five classes and complete all the admin work. “I had to request a teacher who wanted a sick leave to come to school,” he said. A government middle school teacher from Vellore told Express that for two months, she has had to visit voters door-to-door everyday after school hours. “I would reach home at 4.30 pm after school, cook dinner for my husband and children and leave for election duty by 6 pm. I would return only by 8.30 pm as we have to finish updating the list of all voters in the streets designated,” she said.

(Teachers have not been given door-to-door duty for the upcoming rural local body elections). Digital India — without Internet One of the more time-consuming tasks that the teachers have to complete daily is the uploading of student attendance.“Teachers have to update students’ attendance online by 11 am, but the government has not given us an Internet connection,” the headmaster from Tiruvannamalai said. While most teachers use their mobile data to upload the attendance, in schools in remote areas they have to walk out of school premises to find a mobile signal to upload the data. “Almost everyday, one teacher will have to step out of class for at least 15 minutes to upload the attendance,” he said, adding the school education department’s app was prone to glitches which took more class hours to sort out. This problem is not restricted to rural areas. The headmistress of a higher secondary government school in Chennai said that school had a slow Internet connection donated by an NGO. Despite this, government school administrators are expected to fill in over 50 different particulars on the Educational Management Information System (EMIS). After the introduction of the EMIS, teachers are also expected to update details such as attendance, performance, parents’ particulars and Aadhaar details regularly. Teachers are also responsible for obtaining community certificates for students and ensuring that they apply for scholarships and competitive exams. “We have to regularly fill in students’ particulars and information on their Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation System online too. Sometimes the website crashes and we have to re-do all the work. We do not have computer operators to do this work, so I have to pull teachers out of classes to do it,” the headmistress said. Multiple reports The various training programmes conducted by the State and Centre were another stressor. Teachers said they were useful but while one of them was away the other teachers had to cover their classes and admin duties. Also, they were expected to learn and implement pedagogical techniques prescribed by the Samagra Shiksha (SS) and show proof of it. As schools are not accountable to a single governing body, teachers have to submit reports and records to the State School Education Department or Elementary Education Department, SS, State Council for Education Research and Training and their respective local bodies if they are corporation schools.

“We are constantly monitored and we have to submit reports on how we implement new teaching methodologies suggested by the government. However, we do not get the time to practice it or make changes to our routine,” said the headmistress of a corporation school in Chennai. Further, the lack of clerical staff in most schools means teachers also have to personally send out the post. “Teachers were also asked to canvas for subscription to Amma scooters today (Thursday),” the corporation school headmistress said. A high school teacher from Kancheepuram pointed out that teachers were also expected to conduct awareness campaigns for school enrolment, against dengue and other issues of public interest. “We are also expected to formulate reports if a student contracts a seasonal infection,” she added“State government schools are in dire need of administrative staff and computer operators for data entry work,” said PK Ilamaran of TN Government Teachers Association. Students in need of support A middle school teacher from Tiruvannamalai said students needed extra time to cope with the revamped syllabus. “The revamped syllabus is great but the children need extra support to cope. Therefore it is the teachers that need to double up somehow,” she said. She pointed out that most of the students at the government schools came from difficult backgrounds and did not always have parents who could help with their studies. “It is our job to evaluate the needs of each child and provide them both academic and personal support. We need time to engage with students to understand their strengths and weaknesses,” she said. Another middle school science teacher from the same school said that with the pile of non-academic work to get through, she found it difficult to finish her lesson plans. “We struggle to finish the syllabus in time. But since we’re forced to complete the syllabus no matter what, sometimes we only teach the sure-shot questions and important parts of some chapters and skip the rest,” she said. “Private school teachers do not have to do this. They have the time to focus on students and their welfare,” Ilamaran pointed out. ‘Not so bad’ A senior official from the School Education Department said the department could do little about the problem as various government bodies designate work for the staff.

“The government delegates election duty. EMIS entry work is given by SS. Only some additional work is directly delegated by the department,” the official said. Pradeep Yadav, principal secretary to the School Education Department said the government had been doing everything in its capacity to reduce teachers’ workload. He said the State only scheduled additional work for after school hours or weekends. “The government is aware of the statutory duties that teachers have and we try to reduce it as much as possible,” he said, adding that EMIS was introduced to reduce teachers’ work. Out of syllabus work they do Election duty | To receive nominations for the local body elections, teachers have to spend a whole day at a designated village keeping them away from school Updating data online | In schools without proper internet connections, particularly those in rural areas, finding signal and uploading the attendance takes multiple attempts during and between classes and keeps teachers occupied even until 10.30 am Administrative work | Owing to lack of helpers or administrative staff, teachers are left to doing tasks like sending posts, drafting final reports, filling forms, which takes anywhere between just half an hour to at least half a working day Training programmes | Training planned during school working days takes a teacher away from school for a whole day leaving the remaining teachers to handle a large number of students Difficult backgrounds A teacher said most government school students came from difficult backgrounds and did not always have parents who could help with studies. “It is our job to evaluate their needs and give them academic and personal support,” she said.

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