Staff Reporter
Guwahati: Teachers are at loggerheads with the state’s Education Department for giving them extra work that is not included in their academic calendar.
The academic calendar is prepared at the start of the academic year, with details of the work and activities of the teachers throughout the year mapped out. The teachers are now being involved in government programmes and activities related to National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. But the problem is that many activities mandated by NEP 2020 are not included in the academic calendar. The teachers are now questioning why this was not done as NEP 2020 was implemented in the state a long time ago.
Moreover, the teachers complained that the directions for organizing events are received only a short time before the scheduled programme, posing different problems for them.
The teachers are miffed that, since August this year, they had to attend to duties like Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) training, Amrit Briksha, Vidyanjali Utsav, education week, essay-slogan competition, teaching-learning aid day, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) training, mass feast, Har Ghar Tiranga, Space Day, Swachchata Fortnight programmes, three-day training of school management committees, programme on Veer Gatha, UDISE, art festival, Khel Moharan, Nijut Moina, etc. The teachers rued the fact that they have to keep the higher-up officials updated on such duties that are not in their academic calendars. They question why this is so.
The Sadou Asom Sanmilito Shikshak Mancha (SASSM), an umbrella body of all teachers’ organizations, had decided to exit from all WhatsApp groups, by which the teachers keep in touch with education officers on Friday, in protest against the government giving them extra work that is not in their academic calendar. The organisation stuck to their decision, and thousands of teachers today removed themselves from the WhatsApp groups.
The teachers also decided not to obey orders imposing work and activities that are not in the academic calendar from November 1.
The teachers today also urged Education Minister Ranoj Pegu not to involve them in activities that are out of bounds of the academic calendar.
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