Students’ future at stake as teachers busy on poll duty

Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, January 16

The deployment of government school teachers on poll duty could jeopardise the future of thousands of students who are going to appear in the board exams this year.

From booth level officers (BLO) to members of checking teams at police nakas, videography teams have also been deployed with the teachers. On the other hand, computer teachers have been attached with the complaint redressal cell of the Election Commission.

The teachers complained that their deployment on election duty would affect the result of students in the ensuing board examinations going to be held in the first week of March.

The teachers are complaining that due to poll duty they could not do the summative assessment (SA) and formative assessment (FA) of the students.

“At this time of the year, we used to take the pre-broad examinations of students from Classes IX to XII. But this year, it does not appear to be possible. A majority of the schools are headless these days as principals have been deployed on poll duties. Some schools have been left with only a handful of staff. The government schools have opened after long winter breaks. For the past two days, the students are sitting idle and started saying that they will stop coming to school as there is no staff,” said a government school teacher on the condition of anonymity.

The teachers’ association demanded that employees of other government institutions should also be deployed for the election duty.

“Whenever anything happens the government always looks towards teachers. While the surplus staff of the other government departments sit idle. The government should make judicious deployment from the Education Department. The Health Department has recently recruited health educators. But neither the Anganwari workers nor the health educators have been deployed on poll duty,” said Sukhdhir Singh Sekhon, a Government School Teachers’ Association leader.

Despite repeated attempts, District Election Commissioner Ravi Bhagat was not available for comments.