Chandigarh education department asks deputy commissioner not to assign non-academic duties to schoolteachers

Section 27 of the RTE Act prohibits deployment of teachers for non-educational purposes, barring few

In a letter to deputy commissioner Mandip Singh Brar, the UT education department has sought immediate withdrawal of government school teachers from the duties of block- level officers.

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The department in its letter states that an advocate, HC Arora, in a communication, alleged that teachers are being assigned duties of block-level officers throughout the year. As per the letter, “this has led to adverse effects on the education of students.”

SECTION 27 of RTE ACT

The department has requested their withdrawal under Section 27 of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which envisages deployment of teachers only for duties related to elections of local authorities, state legislature or Parliament.

The letter states that as per the instructions of director, ministry of human resource and development, to all education secretaries of states and UTs, teachers can be deployed for such duties during teaching hours only for activities related to the conduct of elections, consequent deployment on days of the poll, counting, training and collection of election material.

All other duties related to the electoral roll revision will be undertaken on holidays, non-teaching hours and non-teaching days, the instructions’ list read.

Earlier, Hindustan Times, based on a series of the Right to Information (RTI) applications, had highlighted that teachers are involved in non-academic duties during school hours.

The teacher’s union leaders said that even now, almost all teachers are given non-academic works such as surveys, maintenance of funds and fee collection, which is in violation of the RTE Act.

Director school education, Rubinderjit Singh Brar, confirmed the development and said, “Advocate HC Arora had highlighted that teachers are given the non-academic duties. Following this, we wrote to the officials concerned.”