Bihar writes to Centre over teachers’ involvement in midday meal scheme

Bihar education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said he has written to the Centre and raised the issue during his meeting with Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently, as it would become all the more demanding [for the teachers] under the new education policy (NEP)

The viral video of a Bihar government school teacher selling gunny bags used for midday meal foodgrains, and is subsequent suspension, has again brought into focus the need to dissociate teachers from additional responsibilities like midday meals (MDM). Bihar education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary said he has written to the Centre and raised the issue during his meeting with Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently, as it would become all the more demanding [for the teachers] under the new education policy (NEP), which also proposes nutritional breakfast to children in addition to MDM.

Representational Image. (HT archive)

“The additional breakfast scheme was to be implemented from April 1, 2021, but could not happen due to Covid. It is a good move, but if teachers will be engaged with breakfast and meal, the real objective will be lost,” he said, adding that Bihar has been advocating for longer involvement of parents through direct benefit transfer or public distribution system (PDS) to spare teachers non-academic work.

Maintaining that teachers remaining involved with meals and preparing vouchers would have an adverse impact on educational atmosphere and quality, he said the schools would end up being a ‘bhojshala’, not ‘pathshala’ (canteen nor school). ”Under the NEP, it is all the more necessary to disassociate teachers completely from MDM. The task should be handed over to an independent body. Everyone talks of quality in government schools, but for that, the teachers would have to be spared,” he added.

The minister said that the government has signed an agreement with Akshay Patra Foundation of ISCON for MDM in Patna schools on a trial basis. “If this works out, we will try to extend it in other districts also by developing a working system group and involving Jeevika volunteers and other local agencies. Providing meals to around 74,000 schools is a huge task,” he added.

Earlier, the state also tried to hand over the responsibility of supplying MDM to children in one block each of Muzaffarpur and Jehanabad districts to Jeevika self-help group (SHGs) as a pilot project. Bihar has over 1.5 million women self-help groups.

However, this is not the first time the state saddled teachers with extra work. A few years ago, the government asked teachers to visit urban wards and panchayat committees of Muzaffarpur and Aurangabad to stop people from defecating in the open. That caused such a furore that the order had to be withdrawn.