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Ludhiana | Teaching work takes a back seat as ‘overburdened’ government school teachers roped in to aid Covid vaccine enquiries
Following the education department’s orders directing government school teachers in Ludhiana to help health department employees in the collection of Covid vaccine data, teachers were forced to put schoolwork on the back-burner on the first day of resumption of offline classes; the teachers criticised the administration for repeatedly pushing them into non-teaching tasks
Government school teachers were forced to put teaching work on the back-burner on the first day of resumption of offline classes on Monday following the education department’s orders directing teachers to help in the collection of Covid vaccine data.
The orders, released on Sunday, directed teachers in each of the 19 blocks to aid health department employees by making phone calls to city residents, enquiring about the status of the vaccine’s second dose. .
Teachers under Mangat-1 and Ludhiana-2 blocks, with 24 and 40 schools respectively, needed to collect data on 25,000 residents each, followed by Ludhiana-1 block, with 30 schools, having a list of 19,000 and Mangat-2, with 20 schools, a list of 16,500 residents.
The teachers were required to complete the mammoth task of collecting data and submitting the report to school principals by Monday afternoon.
The reports were then meant to be submitted to the respective block nodal officer, who would in turn compile the data and forward it to the district education officer..
School administrations and teachers, who have also been roped in for duties for the upcoming state assembly elections, have since come forward in voicing their criticism at being overburdened with non-teaching tasks that are often thrust upon them.
The sudden orders forced teachers skip offline classes, which resumed starting Monday after the state’s order allowing the reopening of schools in favour of spending their working hours to make the aforementioned enquiries.
Teachers criticise administration for repeatedly pushing them into non-teaching tasks
A principal of one of the government schools, requesting anonymity said, “Teachers are supposed to teach the students since their final exams are approaching, but the administration does not seem interested in letting the teachers do their actual jobs as they are being continuously deputed for non-teaching jobs. Teachers couldn’t take any offline or online classes since they remained busy making the calls to enquire about vaccine statuses.”
Further highlighting the difficulty in carrying out the actual exercise given the lack of resources and proper training, a teacher said, “We were not given resources to carry out the enquiry process. Female teachers did not feel entirely comfortable making calls to random people using their own phone numbers, but they had to do so because of the sudden orders.”
“Several people responded rudely to calls, refusing to share details on their date of birth and Aadhaar Card and we did not have the proper training to deal with such situations.” another teacher said.
A senior official said the need for the enquiry exercise, for which the government school teachers have been deputed, arose because of several aberrations in the vaccine data.
The official said the number of doses administered exceeded the number of the fully-vaccinated population in the data available with the administration, adding that multiple cases of vaccinated individuals not getting registered after receiving the dose was the likely reason behind the aberrations.
District education officer Jaswinder Kaur chose not to respond to queries regarding teachers’ complaints of feeling overburdened.
