Visakhapatnam: The Election Commission of India’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is drawing criticism for its impact on government schools.
Teachers across not just AP but India have been given the duty of revising the voters’ list, pulling them away from classrooms and disrupting education. This has come amid schools already struggling with severe staff shortages.
The worst sufferers are the single-teacher government schools that cater to education in villages and remote areas, where children of poor and marginalised communities study. The question of education does not arise when the teacher is busy elsewhere,
Progressive Democratic Students’ Organisation (PDSO) has raised the pertinent question of who will compensate for the lost learning.
India’s national average teacher-student ratio is supposed to be 1:30. But the reality is different in many places. More than 110,000 schools operate with only a single teacher, who juggles with multiple classes and subjects. The burden is immense.
Assigning non-teaching duties only worsens the situation. Teachers are reporting mounting stress and exhaustion, while students are left with diminished instruction and fewer opportunities for individual attention.
The legality of assigning SIR duties to government school teachers, particularly the understaffed and single-teacher schools, has also been questioned. Section 27 of the Right to Education Act explicitly prohibits assigning non-teaching duties to teachers, except in three cases: the decennial census, disaster relief, and election duties for legislatures or parliament. SIR programme does not fall under these exemptions in AP and most other states.
PDSO contends that assignment of teachers for SIR work is both unlawful and a violation of students’ fundamental right to education. The organisation insists that teachers be relieved of SIR responsibilities and alternative government staff be appointed to carry out the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls.
PDSO has called on the government and Election Commission to ensure uninterrupted teaching in government schools, warning that continued disruption would lead to a crisis in government schools that are already ill-equipped in educating children.
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