PATNA: A decision by education department officers in Patna to get senior students to oversee junior classes when the teachers are away for the caste survey on Wednesday prompted the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to criticise the government.
тАЬThis is unfortunate. Teachers are being used and misused for non-productive purposes,тАЭ Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly Vijay Kumar Sinha said on Wednesday, insisting that it would have been better to deploy other state government employees for the task.
Patna district education officer (DEO) Amit Kumar said it was a temporary arrangement decided at a meeting of stakeholders so that school work is not completely disrupted due to the exercise.
A circular issued by KumarтАЩs office said schools should deploy senior students as class monitors to engage students when teachers are not available due to the caste survey. It asked teachers to mark their attendance at any point between 6:30am and 11:30am and get back to the caste survey.
Kumar said the decision was taken at the meeting with stakeholders on April 15, the day the second round of the caste survey was formally started. It will continue till May 15. The first round, in which officials listed the households to be covered and numbered them, was conducted between January 7 and 21.
тАЬIt is a makeshift arrangement so that schools are not fully disrupted due to caste survey. It is a known fact that teachers are engaged in the work. If there are 10 teachers and 4-5 are engaged, naturally classes will suffer. But we donтАЩt want the schools to be fully disrupted. It is not an order. It was a way out discussed at the meeting and is part of the proceedings,тАЭ Kumar added.
In Patna district alone, about 15,000 officials, including enumerators and observers, have been assigned various responsibilities for the door-to-door survey.
Across the state, the government has assigned about 320,000 enumerators to document the details of 29 million registered households on 17 socioeconomic criteria тАУ ranging from employment, education, marital status, land holding and property ownership тАУ and caste. Enumerators will have to choose between 214 pre-registered castes that have been allotted individual codes.
The BJP said the deployment of teachers showed that the Nitish Kumar government had no interest in education.
Sinha hit out at the government for going ahead with caste survey to use it as a political tool at the cost of childrenтАЩs education. тАЬThe government should clarify if it is its order, else it should take action against the DEO,тАЭ he said.
тАЬImagine the plight of teachers and students. Nitish Kumar has to fulfil his political mission of hanging on to power as long as possible and he is up to new tricks. In a state where he syllabus is never completed in schools, senior students are being asked to monitor junior classes because the teachers cannot be in schools. Senior students need more serious schooling, but they donтАЩt get subject teachers. Education is being destroyed here,тАЭ said Sinha.
An education department official said that teaching at schools will be affected, but there was no choice. тАЬDue to heatwave conditions, the problem is for the real and the department may announce holidays for the students. Summer vacation may be early. That will leave the teachers will time to continue with the survey at a convenient time,тАЭ he added.
