A peon doubles as Maths teacher in this Ambala school
He is overqualified for the post he holds but unqualified for the job he carries out. Kamal Singh, a peon at Government Senior Secondary School in Majri village, an hour away from Ambala, doubles as the mathematics teacher for students of Class 9. The reason: there are only 19 teachers for 400 students in the school.
He is overqualified for the post he holds but unqualified for the job he carries out. Kamal Singh, a peon at Government Senior Secondary School in Majri village, an hour away from Ambala, doubles as the mathematics teacher for students of Class 9.
The reason: there are only 19 teachers for 400 students in the school. Of this, there is only one PGT (Post Graduate Teacher) qualified Maths teacher. With the sole mathematics teacher burdened with 54 periods a week in addition to other responsibilities such as election duty etc, the school decided to delegate some of the work to the peon.
“Kamal holds an MSc in Physics and when the Maths teacher was overburdened with work, he went up to the principal and offered to take some classes. I’ve heard that he taught effectively and the students too enjoyed his class. So when the Maths teacher came back, Kamal offered to take 17-18 classes a week to ease the workload,” says Sudhir Kalra, deputy district education officer.
Though Kamal is an MSc holder, he is unqualified to teach the students. As per government norms, a teacher has to have a postgraduate degree in the subject concerned to teach students of Classes 9 to 12.
The deputy DEO, however, comes to his defence. “We should look at the positive side. He is going beyond his call of duty. He rings the bell, offers water to the staff and then teaches students. He has qualities of a responsible teacher,” the DEO says.
Kamal refused to comment, despite several attempts by this correspondent.
However, on being questioned about the state of employment in the Haryana which was forcing highly qualified youths like Kamal to opt for Group-D jobs, Haryana education minister Kanwar Pal Gujjar said, “We can’t stop an educated person from applying for the job of peon.”
“But I can assure you there are only 10-12 % highly educated youths in Group-D jobs. But it is an achievement of the government because many of those who got selected to such posts later apply for higher posts,” the minister added.