Nellore: Government teachers burdened with non-academic activity

Nellore: An earlier report of the National Institute of Education and Administration(NIEA) on contribution of teachers in non-teaching activities that were overshadowing the teaching activity in government-run schools in the country, the same scenario now prevails in Andhra Pradesh where teachers are spending more on activities other than instruction related. The earlier report indicated that teachers were spending only 19.1 per cent of their working hours on teaching. Still, the tradition seems to continue.

Rest of the time, they have been spending on taking attendance of students, distribution of food material, ration, monitoring condition of basic amenities like water supply, sanitation and data uploading activities.

Finally, they are being fed up with the activities other than instruction related and the administration is also imposing workload through apps and websites for consolidation. This has been visible since the start of the pandemic where changes in the working hours, mode of teaching and support to the families, say teachers.

As part of academic activity, now teachers of all these government schools are focusing on distribution of textbooks, notebooks, bags, shoes and socks, belts, and dictionaries. For food support, teachers monitor financial assistance of Rs 15,000, midday meal, eggs, and proper implementation of week-long menu, chikki, and distribution of rice in case of holidays or non-working days.

Teachers are now using Student's Attendance app, Integrated MDM Monitoring System (IMMS) app for midday meal, irish and biometric devices for attendance of teachers. Teachers or headmasters should upload images of full thali of food items being supplied to the children, individual food items prepared, drinking water, and the condition of sanitation in the school premises on daily, without fail. Though the state government is providing network free data to teachers,they say it is not much useful for them. They must rely on their own mobile handset and own data for fast upload. Majority schoolteachers face network issues in remote areas for uploading this data daily.

"Because of these hectic daily activities of uploading data, pictures, attendance and other incidental activities, we cannot focus on academic activity. Baseline tests, formative assessment and summative assessment tests are additional for thrice.

But we are now doing only second and third for half-year and annual after the pandemic," said a teacher from Podalakur mandal.

There are more than 3,000 schools in the district and the teachers are also failing to manage all these activities in case of leaves of majority staff members. Recently, distribution of sanitary material was also added to the list of activities. Buckets, napkins, dustbins, cleaning liquids etcetera being supplied to the students. Even though the state government is permitted to recruit women workers for sanitation at Rs 6,000 per month, they are being paid only Rs 1,000.