As schools reopen in Amritsar, workload on teachers increases manifold

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 6

As more school affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) reopened, workload has increased manifold on teachers.

Ironically, most schoolteachers had not been paid full salary in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.

The state government announced to reopen schools from classes IX to XII after getting approval of parents, but the CBSE-affiliated schools reopened only class X and XII students.

On an average around 30 per cent students were attending regular classes and others were taking online lessons, which stretch up to evening.

A teacher on condition of anonymity said she had left her two kids at home to attend the school. After returning home, I took online classes in the evening, she said.

School managements and parents had been locked in a legal battle over annual charges. Besides a large number of parents were not paying monthly fee. As a result, schools held back nearly 30 per cent salary of their staff.

Dr Dharamveer Singh, chairman, Sahodya Schools, appreciated the efforts of teachers and said they had to teach the same subject in a classroom and online as well.

He said the pending salary would be released once they receive full fees from parents. He said a large number of parents were not depositing fees, which resulted in liquidity crunch.

Chief Khalsa Diwan, which has five CBSE-affiliated schools and four ICSE schools had reopened on November 3.

The state government had allowed all categories of schools, including, government, aided and private to reopen for Class IX to Class XII. However, only the government schools had reopened on October 19.

DAV International School reopened today. Springdales Public School had reopened on October 3. Bhavans’ SL Public School has been operational for the last two weeks.

The schools were following the health guidelines and were allowing only 10 students in a single classroom.